lTY  OF 

CALIFORNIA 
SAN  DIEGO 


presented  to  the 
UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SAN  DIEGO 

by 


Douglas  Warren 


RICHARD  HARDING    DAVIS 


THE 
PRINCESS    ALINE 


By 

Richard  Harding  Davis 


NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 

1900 


Copyright,  1895,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 

All  rights  reserved. 


THE    PRINCESS    ALINE 

I 

H.  R.  H.  the  Princess  Aline  of  Hohen- 
wald  came  into  the  life  of  Morton  Carlton — 
or  "  Morney  "  Carlton,  as  men  called  him — 
of  New  York  city,  when  that  young  gentle 
man's  affairs  and  affections  were  best  suited 
to  receive  her.  Had  she  made  her  appear 
ance  three  years  sooner  or  three  years  later, 
it  is  quite  probable  that  she  would  have 
passed  on  out  of  his  life  with  no  more  rec 
ognition  from  him  than  would  have  been 
expressed  in  a  look  of  admiring  curiosity. 

But  coming  when  she  did,  when  his  time 
and  heart  were  both  unoccupied,  she  had  an 
influence  upon  young  Mr.  Carlton  which  led 
him  into  doing  several  wise  and  many  fool- 


ish  things,  and  which  remained  with  him  al 
ways.  Carlton  had  reached  a  point  in  his 
life,  and  very  early  in  his  life,  when  he  could 
afford  to  sit  at  ease  and  look  back  with  mod 
est  satisfaction  to  what  he  had  forced  him 
self  to  do,  and  forward  with  pleasurable  an 
ticipations  to  whatsoever  he  might  choose 
to  do  in  the  future.  The  world  had  appre 
ciated  what  he  had  done,  and  had  put  much 
to  his  credit,  and  he  was  prepared  to  draw 
upon  this  grandly. 

At  the  age  of  twenty  he  had  found  him 
self  his  own  master,  with  excellent  family 
connections,  but  with  no  family,  his  only 
relative  being  a  bachelor  uncle,  who  looked 
at  life  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Union 
Club's  windows,  and  who  objected  to  his 
nephew's  leaving  Harvard  to  take  up  the 
study  of  art  in  Paris.  In  that  city  (where 
at  Julian's  he  was  nicknamed  the  Junior 
Carlton,  for  the  obvious  reason  that  he  was 
the  older  of  the  two  Carltons  in  the  class, 


and  because  he  was  well  dressed)  he  had 
shown  himself  a  harder  worker  than  others 
who  were  less  careful  of  their  appearance 
and  of  their  manners.  His  work,  of  which 
he  did  not  talk,  and  his  ambitions,  of  which 
he  also  did  not  talk,  bore  fruit  early,  and  at 
twenty-six  he  had  become  a  portrait-paint 
er  of  international  reputation.  Then  the 
French  government  purchased  one  of  his 
paintings  at  an  absurdly  small  figure,  and 
placed  it  in  the  Luxembourg,  from  whence 
it  would  in  time  depart  to  be  buried  in  the 
hall  of  some  provincial  city;  and  American 
millionaires,  and  English  Lord  Mayors, 
members  of  Parliament,  and  members  of 
the  Institute,  masters  of  hounds  in  pink 
coats,  and  ambassadors  in  gold  lace,  and 
beautiful  women  of  all  nationalities  and  con 
ditions  sat  before  his  easel.  And  so  when 
he  returned  to  New  York  he  was  welcomed 
with  an  enthusiasm  which  showed  that  his 
countrymen  had  feared  that  the  artistic 


atmosphere  of  the  Old  World  had  stolen 
him  from  them  forever.  He  was  particu 
larly  silent,  even  at  this  date,  about  his 
work,  and  listened  to  what  others  had  to 
say  of  it  with  much  awe,  not  unmixed  with 
some  amusement,  that  it  should  be  he  who 
was  capable  of  producing  anything  worthy 
of  such  praise.  We  have  been  told  what 
the  mother  duck  felt  when  her  ugly  duck 
ling  turned  into  a  swan,  but  we  have  never 
considered  how  much  the  ugly  duckling 
must  have  marvelled  also. 

"  Carlton  is  probably  the  only  living  art 
ist,"  a  brother  artist  had  said  of  him,  "who 
fails  to  appreciate  how  great  his  work  is." 
And  on  this  being  repeated  to  Carlton  by  a 
good-natured  friend,  he  had  replied  cheer 
fully,  "Well,  I'm  sorry,  but  it  is  certainly 
better  to  be  the  only  one  who  doesn't  ap 
preciate  it  than  to  be  the  only  one  who 
does." 

He   had   never   understood   why   such   a 


responsibility  had  been  intrusted  ta  him. 
It  was,  as  he  expressed  it,  not  at  all  n  his 
line,  and  young  girls  who  sought  to  sit  at 
the  feet  of  the  master  found  him  making 
love  to  them  in  the  most  charming  manner 
in  the  world,  as  though  he  were  not  entitled 
to  all  the  rapturous  admiration  of  their  very 
young  hearts,  but  had  to  sue  for  it  like  any 
ordinary  mortal.  Carlton  always  felt  as 
though  some  day  some  one  would  surely 
come  along  and  say :  "  Look  here,  young 
man,  this  talent  doesn't  belong  to  you  ;  it's 
mine.  What  do  you  mean  by  pretending 
that  such  an  idle  good-natured  youth  as 
yourself  is  entitled  to  such  a  gift  of  genius?" 
He  felt  that  he  was  keeping  it  in  trust,  as  it 
were ;  that  it  had  been  changed  at  birth,  and 
that  the  proper  guardian  would  eventually 
relieve  him  of  his  treasure. 

Personally  Carlton  was  of  the  opinion  that 
he  should  have  been  born  in  the  active  days 
of  knights-errant — to  have  had  nothing  more 


serious  to  do  than  to  ride  abroad  with  a  blue 
ribbon  fastened  to  the  point  of  his  lance, 
and  with  the  spirit  to  unhorse  any  one  who 
objected  to  its  color,  or  to  the  claims  of 
superiority  of  the  noble  lady  who  had  tied 
it  there.  There  was  not,  in  his  opinion,  at 
the  present  day  any  sufficiently  pronounced 
method  of  declaring  admiration  for  the 
many  lovely  women  this  world  contained. 
A  proposal  of  marriage  he  considered  to  be 
a  mean  and  clumsy  substitute  for  the  older 
way,  and  was  uncomplimentary  to  the 
many  other  women  left  unasked,  and  mar 
riage  itself  required  much  more  constancy 
than  he  could  give.  He  had  a  most  roman 
tic  and  old-fashioned  ideal  of  women  as  a 
class,  and  from  the  age  of  fourteen  had  been 
a  devotee  of  hundreds  of  them  as  individ 
uals  ;  and  though  in  that  time  his  ideal  had 
received  several  severe  shocks,  he  still  be 
lieved  that  the  "  not  impossible  she  "  existed 
somewhere,  and  his  conscientious  efforts  to 


find  out  whether  every  women  he  met 
might  not  be  that  one  had  led  him  not  un 
naturally  into  many  difficulties. 

"  The  trouble  with  me  is,"  he  said,  "  that 
I  care  too  much  to  make  Platonic  friendship 
possible,  and  don't  care  enough  to  marry 
any  particular  woman  —  that  is,  of  course, 
supposing  that  any  particular  one  would  be 
so  little  particular  as  to  be  willing  to  many 
me.  How  embarrassing  it  would  be,  now,'" 
he  argued,  "  if,  when  you  were  turning  away 
from  the  chancel  after  the  ceremony,  you 
should  look  at  one  of  the  bridemaids  and 
see  the  woman  whom  you  really  should 
have  married !  How  distressing  that  would 
be !  You  couldn't  very  well  stop  and  say : 
'  I  am  very  sorry,  my  dear,  but  it  seems  I 
have  made  a  mistake.  That  young  woman 
on  the  right  has  a  most  interesting  and 
beautiful  face.  I  am  very  much  afraid  that 
she  is  the  one.'  It  would  be  too  late  then ; 
while  now,  in  my  free  state,  I  can  continue 


my  search  without  any  sense  of  responsi 
bility." 

"Why"  —  he  would  exclaim  —  "I  have 
walked  miles  to  get  a  glimpse  of  a  beautiful 
woman  in  a  suburban  window,  and  time  and 
time  again  when  I  have  seen  a  face  in  a 
passing  brougham  I  have  pursued  it  in  a 
hansom,  and  learned  where  the  owner  of 
the  face  lived,  and  spent  weeks  in  finding 
some  one  to  present  me,  only  to  discover 
that  she  was  self-conscious  or  uninteresting 
or  engaged.  Still  I  had  assured  myself  that 
she  was  not  the  one.  I  am  very  conscien 
tious,  and  I  consider  that  it  is  my  duty  to 
go  so  far  with  every  woman  I  meet  as  to  be 
able  to  learn  whether  she  is  or  is  not  the 
one,  and  the  sad  result  is  that  I  am  like  a 
man  who  follows  the  hounds  but  is  never  in 
at  the  death." 

"Well,"  some  married  woman  would 
say,  grimly,  "  I  hope  you  will  get  your 
deserts  some  day;  and  you  will,  too. 


Some  day  some  girl  will  make  you  suffer 
for  this." 

"Oh,  that's  all  right,"  Carlton  would 
answer,  meekly.  "  Lots  of  women  have 
made  me  suffer,  if  that's  what  you  think  I 
need." 

"Some  day,"  the  married  woman  would 
prophesy,  "you  will  care  for  a  woman  so 
much  that  you  will  have  no  eyes  for  any 
one  else.  That's  the  way  it  is  when  one  is 
married." 

"Well,  when  that's  the  way  it  is  with 
me"  Carlton  would  reply,  "  I  certainly  hope 
to  get  married ;  but  until  it  is,  I  think  it  is 
safer  for  all  concerned  that  I  should  not." 

Then  Carlton  would  go  to  the  club  and 
complain  bitterly  to  one  of  his  friends. 

"  How  unfair  married  women  are !"  he 
would  say.  "The  idea  of  thinking  a  man 
could  have  no  eyes  but  for  one  woman ! 
Suppose  I  had  never  heard  a  note  of  music 
until  I  was  twenty-five  years  of  age,  and 


was  then  given  my  hearing.  Do  you  sup 
pose  my  pleasure  in  music  would  make  me 
lose  my  pleasure  in  everything  else?  Sup 
pose  I  met  and  married  a  girl  at  twenty- 
five.  Is  that  going  to  make  me  forget  all 
the  women  I  knew  before  I  met  her?  I 
think  not.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  really  de 
serve  a  great  deal  of  credit  for  remaining 
single,  for  I  am  naturally  very  affectionate ; 
but  when  I  see  what  poor  husbands  my 
friends  make,  I  prefer  to  stay  as  I  am  until 
I  am  sure  that  I  will  make  a  better  one.  It 
is  only  fair  to  the  woman." 

Carlton  was  sitting  in  the  club  alone.  He 
had  that  sense  of  superiority  over  his  fellows 
and  of  irresponsibility  to  the  world  about 
him  that  comes  to  a  man  when  he  knows 
that  his  trunks  are  being  packed  and  that 
his  state-room  is  engaged.  He  was  leaving 
New  York  long  before  most  of  his  friends 
could  get  away.  He  did  not  know  just 
where  he  was  going,  and  preferred  not  to 


know.  He  wished  to  have  a  complete  holi 
day,  and  to  see  Europe  as  an  idle  tourist, 
and  not  as  an  artist  with  an  eye  to  his  own 
improvement.  He  had  plenty  of  time  and 
money ;  he  was  sure  to  run  across  friends  in 
the  big  cities,  and  acquaintances  he  could 
make  or  not,  as  he  pleased,  en  route.  He 
was  not  sorry  to  go.  His  going  would  serve 
to  put  an  end  to  what  gossip  there  might 
be  of  his  engagement  to  numerous  young 
women  whose  admiration  for  him  as  an 
artist,  he  was  beginning  to  fear,  had  taken 
on  a  more  personal  tinge.  "  I  wish,"  he 
said,  gloomily,  "  I  didn't  like  people  so  well. 
It  seems  to  cause  them  and  me  such  a  lot  of 
trouble." 

He  sighed,  and  stretched  out  his  hand  for 
a  copy  of  one  of  the  English  illustrated  pa 
pers.  It  had  a  fresher  interest  to  him  be 
cause  the  next  number  of  it  that  he  would 
see  would  be  in  the  city  in  which  it  was 
printed.  The  paper  in  his  hands  was  the 


12 


St.  James  Budget,  and  it  contained  much 
fashionable  intelligence  concerning  the  prep 
arations  for  a  royal  wedding  which  was 
soon  to  take  place  between  members  of  two 
of  the  reigning  families  of  Europe.  There 
was  on  one  page  a  half-tone  reproduction  of 
a  photograph,  which  showed  a  group  of 
young  people  belonging  to  several  of  these 
reigning  families,  with  their  names  and  titles 
printed  above  and  below  the  picture.  They 
were  princesses,  archdukes,  or  granddukes, 
and  they  were  dressed  like  young  English 
men  and  women,  and  with  no  sign  about 
them  of  their  possible  military  or  social  rank. 
One  of  the  young  princesses  in  the  photo 
graph  was  looking  out  of  it  and  smiling  in  a 
tolerant,  amused  way,  as  though  she  had 
thought  of  something  which  she  could  not 
wait  to  enjoy  until  after  the  picture  was 
taken.  She  was  not  posing  consciously,  as 
were  some  of  the  others,  but  was  sitting  in 
a  natural  attitude,  with  one  arm  over  the 


13 

back  of  her  chair,  and  with  her  hands 
clasped  before  her.  Her  face  was  full  of  a 
fine  intelligence  and  humor,  and  though  one 
of  the  other  princesses  in  the  group  was  far 
more  beautiful,  this  particular  one  had  a 
much  more  high-bred  air,  and  there  was 
something  of  a  challenge  in  her  smile  that 
made  any  one  who  looked  at  the  picture 
smile  also.  Carlton  studied  the  face  for 
some  time,  and  mentally  approved  of  its 
beauty;  the  others  seemed  in  comparison 
wooden  and  unindividual,  but  this  one 
looked  like  a  person  he  might  have  known, 
and  whom  he  would  certainly  have  liked. 
He  turned  the  page  and  surveyed  the  fea 
tures  of  the  Oxford  crew  with  lesser  inter 
est,  and  then  turned  the  page  again  and 
gazed  critically  and  severely  at  the  face  of 
the  princess  with  the  high-bred  smile.  He 
had  hoped  that  he  would  find  it  less  inter 
esting  at  a  second  glance,  but  it  did  not 
prove  to  be  so. 


14 

"'The  Princess  Aline  of  Hohenwald,'  *'  he 
read.  "  She's  probably  engaged  to  one  of 
those  Johnnies  beside  her,  and  the  Grand- 
Duke  of  Hohenwald  behind  her  must  be 
her  brother."  He  put  the  paper  down  and 
went  into  luncheon,  and  diverted  himself  by 
mixing  a  salad  dressing;  but  after  a  few 
moments  he  stopped  in  the  midst  of  this 
employment,  and  told  the  waiter,  with  some 
unnecessary  sharpness,  to  bring  him  the  last 
copy  of  the  St.  James  Budget. 

"Confound  it!"  he  added,  to  himself. 

He  opened  the  paper  with  a  touch  of  im 
patience  and  gazed  long  and  earnestly  at 
the  face  of  the  Princess  Aline,  who  contin 
ued  to  return  his  look  with  the  same  smile 
of  amused  tolerance.  Carlton  noted  every 
detail  of  her  tailor-made  gown,  of  her  high 
mannish  collar,  of  her  tie,  and  even  the  rings 
on  her  hand.  There  was  nothing  about  her 
of  which  he  could  fairly  disapprove.  He 
wondered  why  it  was  that  she  could  not 


15 

have  been  born  an  approachable  New  York 
girl  instead  of  a  princess  of  a  little  German 
duchy,  hedged  in  throughout  her  single  life, 
and  to  be  traded  off  eventually  in  marriage 
with  as  much  consideration  as  though  she 
were  a  princess  of  a  real  kingdom. 

"She  looks  jolly  too,"  he  mused,  in  an 
injured  tone ;  "  and  so  very  clever ;  and  of 
course  she  has  a  beautiful  complexion.  All 
those  German  girls  have.  Your  Royal  High 
ness  is  more  than  pretty,"  he  said,  bowing 
his  head  gravely.  "  You  look  as  a  princess 
should  look.  I  am  sure  it  was  one  of  your 
ancestors  who  discovered  the  dried  pea 
under  a  dozen  mattresses."  He  closed  the 
paper,  and  sat  for  a  moment  with  a  per 
plexed  smile  of  consideration.  "Waiter," 
he  exclaimed,  suddenly,  "  send  a  messen 
ger-boy  to  Brentano's  for  a  copy  of  the  Sf. 
James  Budget,  and  bring  me  the  Almanach 
de  Gotha  from  the  library.  It  is  a  little  fat 
red  book  on  the  table  near  the  window." 


16 

Then  Carlton  opened  the  paper  again  and 
propped  it  up  against  a  carafe,  and  contin 
ued  his  critical  survey  of  the  Princess  Aline. 
He  seized  the  Almanach,  when  it  came, 
with  some  eagerness. 

"  Hohenwald  (Maison  de  Grasse),"  he  read, 
and  in  small  type  below  it : 

"  i.  Ligne  cadette  (regnante)  grand-ducale  :  Ho 
henwald  et  de  Grasse. 

"  Guillaume  -  Albert  -  Frederick  -  Charles  -  Louis, 
Grand-Due  de  Hohenwald  et  de  Grasse,  etc.,  etc., 
etc." 

"  That's  the  brother,  right  enough,"  mut 
tered  Carlton. 

And  under  the  heading  "  Sceurs  "  he  read  : 

"  4.  Psse  Aline.— Victoria-Beatrix- Louise-Helene, 
Alt.  Gr.-Duc.  Nee  a  Grasse,  Juin,  1872." 

"  Twenty-two  years  old,"  exclaimed  Carl- 
ton.  "  What  a  perfect  age !  I  could  not  have 
invented  a  better  one."  He  looked  from  the 


book  to  the  face  before  him.  "  Now,  my 
dear  young  lady,"  he  said,  "  I  know  all  about 
you.  You  live  at  Grasse,  and  you  are  con 
nected,  to  judge  by  your  names,  with  all  the 
English  royalties ;  and  very  pretty  names 
they  are,  too — Aline,  Helene,  Victoria,  Bea 
trix.  You  must  be  much  more  English  than 
you  are  German ;  and  I  suppose  you  live  in 
a  little  old  castle,  and  your  brother  has  a 
standing  army  of  twelve  men,  and  some  day 
you  are  to  marry  a  Russian  Grand  -  Duke, 
or  whoever  your  brother's  Prime  Minister — 
if  he  has  a  Prime  Minister  —  decides  is  best 
for  the  politics  of  your  little  toy  kingdom. 
Ah!  to  think,"  exclaimed  Carlton,  softly, 
"  that  such  a  lovely  and  glorious  creature  as 
that  should  be  sacrificed  for  so  insignificant 
a  thing  as  the  peace  of  Europe  when  she 
might  make  some  young  man  happy?" 

He  carried  a  copy  of  the  paper  to  his 
room,  and  cut  the  picture  of  the  group  out 
of  the  page  and  pasted  it  carefully  on  a  stiff 


El 

piece  of  card-board.  Then  he  placed  it  on 
his  dressing  -  table,  in  front  of  a  photograph 
of  a  young  woman  in  a  large  silver  frame — 
which  was  a  sign,  had  the  young  woman  but 
known  it,  that  her  reign  for  the  time  being 
was  over. 

Nolan,  the  young  Irishman  who  "  did  for  " 
Carlton,  knew  better  than  to  move  it  when 
he  found  it  there.  He  had  learned  to  study 
his  master  since  he  had  joined  him  in  Lon 
don,  and  understood  that  one  photograph  in 
the  silver  frame  was  entitled  to  more  con 
sideration  than  three  others  on  the  writing- 
desk  or  half  a  dozen  on  the  mantel-piece. 
Nolan  had  seen  them  come  and  go ;  he  had 
watched  them  rise  and  fall;  he  had  car 
ried  notes  to  them,  and  books  and  flowers ; 
and  had  helped  to  dispose  them  from  the 
silver  frame  and  move  them  on  by  degrees 
down  the  line,  until  they  went  ingloriously 
into  the  big  brass  bowl  on  the  side  table. 
Nolan  approved  highly  of  this  last  choice. 


19 

He  did  not  know  which  one  of  the  three  in 
the  group  it  might  be;  but  they  were  all 
pretty,  and  their  social  standing  was  cer 
tainly  distinguished. 

Guido,  the  Italian  model  who  ruled  over 
the  studio,  and  Nolan  were  busily  packing 
when  Carlton  entered.  He  always  said  that 
Guido  represented  him  in  his  professional 
and  Nolan  in  his  social  capacity.  Guido 
cleaned  the  brushes  and  purchased  the  art 
ists'  materials;  Nolan  cleaned  his  riding- 
boots  and  bought  his  theatre  and  railroad 
tickets. 

"  Guido,"  said  Carlton,  "  there  are  two 
sketches  I  made  in  Germany  last  year,  one 
of  the  Prime  Minister,  and  one  of  Ludwig 
the  actor;  get  them  out  for  me,  will  you, 
and  pack  them  for  shipping.  Nolan,"  he 
went  on,  "  here  is  a  telegram  to  send." 

Nolan  would  not  have  read  a  letter,  but 
he  looked  upon  telegrams  as  public  docu 
ments,  the  reading  of  them  as  part  of  his 


perquisites.  This  one  was  addressed  to 
Oscar  Von  Holtz,  First  Secretary,  German 
Embassy,  Washington,  D.  C.t  and  the  mes 
sage  read : 

"  Please  telegraph  me  full  title  and  ad 
dress  Princess  Aline  of  Hohenwald.  Where 
would  a  letter  reach  her  ? 

"  MORTON  CARLTON." 

The  next  morning  Nolan  carried  to  the  ex 
press  office  a  box  containing  two  oil-paint 
ings  on  small  canvases.  They  were  addressed 
to  the  man  in  London  who  attended  to  the 
shipping  and  forwarding  of  Carlton's  pictures 
in  that  town. 

There  was  a  tremendous  crowd  on  the 
New  York.  She  sailed  at  the  obliging  hour 
of  eleven  in  the  morning,  and  many  people, 
in  consequence,  whose  affection  would  not 
have  stood  in  the  way  of  their  breakfast, 


made  it  a  point  to  appear  and  to  say  good 
bye.  Carlton,  for  his  part,  did  not  notice 
them ;  he  knew  by  experience  that  the 
attractive  -  looking  people  always  leave  a 
steamer  when  the  whistle  blows,  and  that 
the  next  most  attractive  -  looking,  who  re 
main  on  board,  are  ill  all  the  way  over.  A 
man  that  he  knew  seized  him  by  the  arm  as 
he  was  entering  his  cabin,  and  asked  if  he 
were  crossing  or  just  seeing  people  off. 

"  Well,  then,  I  want  to  introduce  you  to 
Miss  Morris  and  her  aunt,  Mrs.  Downs; 
they  are  going  over,  and  I  should  be  glad 
if  you  would  be  nice  to  them.  But  you 
know  her,  I  guess?"  he  asked,  over  his 
shoulder,  as  Carlton  pushed  his  way  after 
him  down  the  deck. 

"  I  know  who  she  is,"  he  said. 

Miss  Edith  Morris  was  surrounded  by  a 
treble  circle  of  admiring  friends,  and  seemed 
to  be  holding  her  own.  They  all  stopped 
when  Carlton  came  up,  and  looked  at  him 


rather  closely,  and  those  whom  he  knew 
seemed  to  mark  the  fact  by  a  particular 
ly  hearty  greeting.  The  man  who  had 
brought  him  up  acted  as  though  he  had 
successfully  accomplished  a  somewhat  diffi 
cult  and  creditable  feat.  Carlton  bowed 
himself  away,  leaving  Miss  Morris  to  her 
friends,  and  saying  that  she  would  probably 
have  to  see  him  later,  whether  she  wished  it 
or  not.  He  then  went  to  meet  the  aunt, 
who  received  him  kindly,  for  there  were 
very  few  people  on  the  passenger  list,  and 
she  was  glad  they  were  to  have  his  com 
pany.  Before  he  left  she  introduced  him 
to  a  young  man  named  Abbey,  who  was 
hovering  around  her  most  anxiously,  and 
whose  interest,  she  seemed  to  think  it 
necessary  to  explain,  was  due  to  the  fact 
that  he  was  engaged  to  Miss  Morris.  Mr. 
Abbey  left  the  steamer  when  the  whistle 
blew,  and  Carlton  looked  after  him  grate 
fully.  He  always  enjoyed  meeting  attrac- 


23 

tive  girls  who  were  engaged,  as  it  left  him 
no  choice  in  the  matter,  and  excused  him 
from  finding  out  whether  or  not  that  par 
ticular  young  woman  was  the  one. 

Mrs.  Downs  and  her  niece  proved  to  be 
experienced  sailors,  and  faced  the  heavy 
sea  that  met  the  New  York  outside  of 
Sandy  Hook  with  unconcern.  Carlton 
joined  them,  and  they  stood  together  lean 
ing  with  their  backs  to  the  rail,  and  try 
ing  to  fit  the  people  who  flitted  past  them 
to  the  names  on  the  passenger  list. 

"  The  young  lady  in  the  sailor  suit," 
said  Miss  Morris,  gazing  at  the  top  of  the 
smoke  -  stack,  "  is  Miss  Kitty  Flood,  of 
Grand  Rapids.  This  is  her  first  voyage,  and 
she  thinks  a  steamer  is  something  like  a 
yacht,  and  dresses  for  the  part  accordingly. 
She  does  not  know  that  it  is  merely  a 
moving  hotel." 

"I  am  afraid,"  said  Carlton,  "to  judge 
from  her  agitation,  that  hers  is  going  to  be 


24 

what  the  professionals  call  a '  dressing-room ' 
part.  Why  is  it,"  he  asked,  "  that  the  girls 
on  a  steamer  who  wear  gold  anchors  and 
the  men  in  yachting -caps  are  always  the 
first  to  disappear?  That  man  with  the 
sombrero,"  he  went  on,  "is  James  M.Pol- 
lock,  United  States  Consul  to  Mauritius ; 
he  is  going  out  to  his  post.  I  know  he  is 
the  consul,  because  he  comes  from  Fort 
Worth,  Texas,  and  is  therefore  admirably 
fitted  to  speak  either  French  or  the  native 
language  of  the  island." 

"  Oh,  we  don't  send  consuls  to  Mauritius," 
laughed  Miss  Morris.  "  Mauritius  is  one  of 
those  places  from  which  you  buy  stamps, 
but  no  one  really  lives  or  goes  there." 

"  Where  are  you  going,  may  I  ask  ?"  in 
quired  Carlton. 

Miss  Morris  said  that  they  were  making 
their  way  to  Constantinople  and  Athens, 
and  then  to  Rome ;  that  as  they  had  not 
had  th<?  lime  to  take  the  southern  route, 


25 

they  purposed  to  journey  across  the  Conti 
nent  direct  from  Paris  to  the  Turkish  capi 
tal  by  the  Orient  Express. 

"  We  shall  be  a  few  days  in  London,  and 
in  Paris  only  long  enough  for  some  clothes," 
she  replied. 

"The  trousseau,"  thought  Carlton. 
"Weeks  is  what  she  should  have  said." 

The  three  sat  together  at  the  captain's 
table,  and  as  the  sea  continued  rough,  saw 
little  of  either  the  captain  or  his  other 
guests,  and  were  thrown  much  upon  the 
society  of  each  other.  They  had  innumer 
able  friends  and  interests  in  common  ;  and 
Mrs.  Downs,  who  had  been  everywhere,  and 
for  long  seasons  at  a  time,  proved  as  alive 
as  her  niece,  and  Carlton  conceived  a  great 
liking  for  her.  She  seemed  to  be  just  and 
kindly  minded,  and,  owing  to  her  age,  to 
combine  the  wider  judgment  of  a  man 
with  the  sympathetic  interest  of  a  woman. 
Sometimes  they  sat  together  in  a  row  and 


26 

read,  and  gossiped  over  what  they  read,  or 
struggled  up  the  deck  as  it  rose  and  fell 
and  buffeted  with  the  wind ;  and  later  they 
gathered  in  a  corner  of  the  saloon  and  ate 
late  suppers  of  Carlton's  devising,  or  drank 
tea  in  the  captain's  cabin,  which  he  had 
thrown  open  to  them.  They  had  started 
knowing  much  about  one  another,  and  this 
and  the  necessary  proximity  of  the  ship 
hastened  their  acquaintance. 

The  sea  grew  calmer  the  third  day  out, 
and  the  sun  came  forth  and  showed  the 
decks  as  clean  as  bread-boards.  Miss  Mor 
ris  and  Carlton  seated  themselves  on  the 
huge  iron  riding-bits  in  the  bow,  and  with 
their  elbows  on  the  rail  looked  down  at 
the  whirling  blue  water,  and  rejoiced  si 
lently  in  the  steady  rush  of  the  great  vessel, 
and  in  the  uncertain  warmth  of  the  March 
sun.  Carlton  was  sitting  to  leeward  of  Miss 
Morris,  with  a  pipe  between  his  teeth.  He 
was  warm,  and  at  peace  with  the  world. 


27 

He  had  found  his  new  acquaintance  more 
than  entertaining.  She  was  even  friendly, 
and  treated  him  as  though  he  were  much 
her  junior,  as  is  the  habit  of  young  women 
lately  married  or  who  are  about  to  be  mar 
ried.  Carlton  did  not  resent  it;  on  the 
contrary,  it  made  him  more  at  his  ease 
with  her,  and  as  she  herself  chose  to  treat 
him  as  a  youth,  he  permitted  himself  to  be 
as  foolish  as  he  pleased. 

"  I  don't  know  why  it  is,"  he  complained, 
peering  over  the  rail,  "  but  whenever  I  look 
over  the  side  to  watch  the  waves  a  man  in 
a  greasy  cap  always  sticks  his  head  out  of  a 
hole  below  me  and  scatters  a  barrelful  of 
ashes  or  potato  peelings  all  over  the  ocean. 
It  spoils  the  effect  for  one.  Next  time  he 
does  it  I  am  going  to  knock  out  the  ashes 
of  my  pipe  on  the  back  of  his  neck."  Miss 
Morris  did  not  consider  this  worthy  of  com 
ment,  and  there  was  a  long  lazy  pause. 

"  You  haven't  told  us  where  you  go  after 


28 

London,"  she  said  ;  and  then,  without  wait 
ing  for  him  to  reply,  she  asked,  "  Is  it  your 
professional  or  your  social  side  that  you  are 
treating  to  a  trip  this  time  ?" 

"Who  told  you  that?"  asked  Carlton, 
smiling. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know.  Some  man.  He 
said  you  were  a  Jekyll  and  Hyde.  Which 
is  Jekyll?  You  see,  I  only  know  your  pro 
fessional  side." 

"You  must  try  to  find  out  for  yourself 
by  deduction,"  he  said,  "  as  you  picked  out 
the  other  passengers.  I  am  going  to 
Grasse,"  he  continued.  "  It's  the  capital 
of  Hohenwald.  Do  you  know  it  ?" 

"  Yes,"  she  said ;  "  we  were  there  once 
for  a  few  days.  We  went  to  see  the  pict 
ures.  I  suppose  you  know  that  the  old 
Duke,  the  father  of  the  present  one,  ruined 
himself  almost  by  buying  pictures  for  the 
Grasse  gallery.  We  were  there  at  a  bad 
time,  though,  when  the  palace  was  closed  to 


29 

visitors,  and  the  gallery  too.  I  suppose 
that  is  what  is  taking  you  there  ?" 

"No,"  Carlton  said,  shaking  his  head. 
"  No,  it  is  not  the  pictures.  I  am  going  to 
Grasse,"  he  said,  gravely,  "  to  see  the  young 
woman  with  whom  I  am  in  love." 

Miss  Morris  looked  up  in  some  surprise, 
and  smiled  consciously,  with  a  natural  femi 
nine  interest  in  an  affair  of  love,  and  one 
which  was  a  secret  as  well. 

"  Oh,"  she  said,  "  I  beg  your  pardon ;  we 
— I  had  not  heard  of  it." 

"  No,  it  is  not  a  thing  one  could  announce 
exactly,"  said  Carlton ;  "  it  is  rather  in  an 
embryo  state  as  yet  —  in  fact,  I  have  not 
met  the  young  lady  so  far,  but  I  mean 
to  meet  her.  That's  why  I  am  going 
abroad." 

Miss  Morris  looked  at  him  sharply  to  see 
if  he  were  smiling,  but  he  was,  on  the  con 
trary,  gazing  sentimentally  at  the  horizon- 
line,  and  puffing  meditatively  on  his  pipe. 


30 

He  was  apparently  in  earnest,  and  waiting 
for  her  to  make  some  comment. 

"  How  very  interesting !"  was  all  she  could 
think  to  say. 

"  Yes,  when  you  know  the  details,  it  is, 

very  interesting, "  he  answered.  "She 

is  the  Princess  Aline  of  Hohenwald,"  he 
explained,  bowing  his  head  as  though  he 
were  making  the  two  young  ladies  known 
to  one  another.  "She  has  several  other 
names,  six  in  all,  and  her  age  is  twenty-two. 
That  is  all  I  know  about  her.  I  saw  her 
picture  in  an  illustrated  paper  just  before  I 
sailed,  and  I  made  up  my  mind  I  would  meet 
her,  and  here  I  am.  If  she  is  not  in  Grasse, 
I  intend  to  follow  her  to  wherever  she  may 
be."  He  waved  his  pipe  at  the  ocean  before 
him,  and  recited,  with  mock  seriousness : 

"'Across  the  hills  and  far  away, 

Beyond  their  utmost  purple  rim, 
And  deep  into  the  dying  day, 
The  happy  Princess  followed  him.' 


"Only  in  this  case,  you  see,"  said  Carl- 
ton,  "  I  am  following  the  happy  Princess." 

"No;  but  seriously,  though,"  said  Miss 
Morris,  "what  is  it  you  mean?  Are  you 
going  to  paint  her  portrait?" 

"  I  never  thought  of  that,"  exclaimed 
Carlton.  "I  don't  know  but  what  your 
idea  is  a  good  one.  Miss  Morris,  that's  a 
great  idea."  He  shook  his  head  approv 
ingly.  "  I  did  not  do  wrong  to  confide  in 
you,"  he  said.  "It  was  perhaps  taking  a 
liberty;  but  as  you  have  not  considered  it 
as  such,  I  am  glad  I  spoke." 

"  But  you  don't  really  mean  to  tell  me," 
exclaimed  the  girl,  facing  about,  and  nod 
ding  her  head  at  him,  "that  you  are  going 
abroad  after  a  woman  whom  you  have  never 
seen,  and  because  you  like  a  picture  of  her 
in  a  paper  ?" 

"I  do,"  said  Carlton.  "Because  I  like 
her  picture,  and  because  she  is  a  Princess." 

"  Well,  upon  my  word,"  said  Miss  Mor- 


32 

ris,  gazing  at  him  with  evident  admiration, 
"that's  what  my  younger  brother  would 
call  a  distinctly  sporting  proposition.  Only 
I  don't  see,"  she  added,  "  what  her  being  a 
Princess  has  to  do  with  it." 

"  You  don't  ?"  laughed  Carlton,  easily. 
"  That's  the  best  part  of  it— that's  the  plot. 
The  beauty  of  being  in  love  with  a  Princess, 
Miss  Morris,"  he  said,  "  lies  in  the  fact  that 
you  can't  marry  her ;  that  you  can  love  her 
deeply  and  forever,  and  nobody  will  ever 
come  to  you  and  ask  your  intentions,  or 
hint  that  after  such  a  display  of  affection 
you  ought  to  do  something.  Now,  with  a 
girl  who  is  not  a  Princess,  even  if  she  un 
derstands  the  situation  herself,  and  wouldn't 
marry  you  to  save  her  life,  still  there  is  al 
ways  some  one — a  father,  or  a  mother,  or 
one  of  your  friends — who  makes  it  his  busi 
ness  to  interfere,  and  talks  about  it,  and 
bothers  you  both.  But  with  a  Princess, 
you  see,  that  is  all  eliminated.  You  can't 


33 

marry  a  Princess,  because  they  won't  let 
you.  A  Princess  has  got  to  marry  a  real 
royal  chap,  and  so  you  are  perfectly  ineli 
gible  and  free  to  sigh  for  her,  and  make 
pretty  speeches  to  her,  and  see  her  as  often 
as  you  can,  and  revel  in  your  devotion  and 
unrequited  affection." 

Miss  Morris  regarded  him  doubtfully. 
She  did  not  wish  to  prove  herself  too  cred 
ulous.  "And  you  honestly  want  me,  Mr. 
Carlton,  to  believe  that  you  are  going 
abroad  just  for  this?" 

"You  see,"  Carlton  answered  her,  "  if  you 
only  knew  me  better  you  would  have  no 
doubt  on  the  subject  at  all.  It  isn't  the 
thing  some  men  would  do,  I  admit,  but  it 
is  exactly  what  any  one  who  knows  me 
would  expect  of  me.  I  should  describe  it, 
having  had  acquaintance  with  the  young 
man  for  some  time,  as  being  eminently 
characteristic.  And  besides,  think  what  a 
good  story  it  makes!  Every  other  man 


34 

who  goes  abroad  this  summer  will  try  to 
tell  about  his  travels  when  he  gets  back  to 
New  York,  and,  as  usual,  no  one  will  listen 
to  him.  But  they  will  have  to  listen  to  me. 
'You've  been  across  since  I  saw  you  last. 
What  did  you  do?'  they'll  ask,  politely. 
And  then,  instead  of  simply  telling  them 
that  I  have  been  in  Paris  or  London,  I  can 
say, '  Oh,  I've  been  chasing  around  the  globe 
after  the  Princess  Aline  of  Hohenwald.' 
That  sounds  interesting,  doesn't  it  ?  When 
you  come  to  think  of  it,"  Carlton  continued, 
meditatively,  "  it  is  not  so  very  remarkable. 
Men  go  all  the  way  to  Cuba  and  Mexico, 
and  even  to  India,  after  orchids,  after  a 
nasty  flower  that  grows  in  an  absurd  way 
on  the  top  of  a  tree.  Why  shouldn't  a 
young  man  go  as  far  as  Germany  after  a 
beautiful  Princess,  who  walks  on  the  ground, 
and  who  can  talk  and  think  and  feel  ?  She 
is  much  more  worth  while  than  an  orchid." 
Miss  Morris  laughed  indulgently.  "  Well, 


35 

I  didn't  know  such  devotion  existed  at  this 
end  of  the  century,"  she  said;  "it's  quite 
nice  and  encouraging.  I  hope  you  will  suc 
ceed,  I  am  sure.  I  only  wish  we  were  go 
ing  to  be  near  enough  to  see  how  you  get 
on.  I  have  never  been  a  confidante  when 
there  was  a  real  Princess  concerned,"  she 
said  ;  "  it  makes  it  so  much  more  amusing. 
May  one  ask  what  your  plans  are  ?'' 

Carlton  doubted  if  he  had  any  plans  as 
yet.  "  I  have  to  reach  the  ground  first," 
he  said,  "  and  after  that  I  must  reconnoitre. 
I  may  possibly  adopt  your  idea,  and  ask 
to  paint  her  portrait,  only  I  dislike  confus 
ing  my  social  and  professional  sides.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  though,"  he  said,  after  a 
pause,  laughing  guiltily,  "  I  have  done  a  lit 
tle  of  that  already.  I  prepared  her,  as  it 
were,  for  my  coming.  I  sent  her  studies  of 
two  pictures  I  made  last  winter  in  Berlin. 
One  of  the  Prime  Minister,  and  one  of  Lud- 
wig,  the  tragedian  at  the  Court  Theatre.  I 


36 

sent  them  to  her  through  my  London 
agent,  so  that  she  would  think  they  had 
come  from  some  one  of  her  English  friends, 
and  I  told  the  dealer  not  to  let  any  one 
know  who  had  forwarded  them.  My  idea 
was  that  it  might  help  me,  perhaps,  if  she 
knew  something  about  me  before  I  ap 
peared  in  person.  It  was  a  sort  of  letter  of 
introduction  written  by  myself." 

"  Well,  really,"  expostulated  Miss  Morris, 
"  you  certainly  woo  in  a  royal  way.  Are  you 
in  the  habit  of  giving  away  your  pictures  to 
any  one  whose  photograph  you  happen  to 
like  ?  That  seems  to  me  to  be  giving  new 
lamps  for  old  to  a  degree.  I  must  see  if  I 
haven't  some  of  my  sister's  photographs  in 
my  trunk.  She  is  considered  very  beauti 
ful." 

"Well,  you  wait  until  you  see  this  par 
ticular  portrait,  and  you  will  understand  it 
better,"  said  Carlton. 

The  steamer  reached  Southampton  early 


37 

in  the  afternoon,  and  Carlton  secured  a  spe 
cial  compartment  on  the  express  to  London 
for  Mrs.  Downs  and  her  niece  and  himself, 
with  one  adjoining  for  their  maid  and  No 
lan.  It  was  a  beautiful  day,  and  Carlton  sat 
with  his  eyes  fixed  upon  the  passing  fields 
and  villages,  exclaiming  with  pleasure  from 
time  to  time  at  the  white  roads  and  the 
feathery  trees  and  hedges,  and  the  red  roofs 
of  the  inns  and  square  towers  of  the  village 
churches. 

"Hedges  are  better  than  barbed -wire 
fences,  aren't  they?"  he  said.  "You  see 
that  girl  picking  wild  flowers  from  one  of 
them  ?  She  looks  just  as  though  she  were 
posing  for  a  picture  for  an  illustrated  paper. 
She  couldn't  pick  flowers  from  a  barbed- 
wire  fence,  could  she?  And  there  would 
probably  be  a  tramp  along  the  road  some 
where  to  frighten  her ;  and  see — the  chap  in 
knickerbockers  farther  down  the  road  lean 
ing  on  the  stile.  I  am  sure  he  is  waiting 


38 

for  her ;  and  here  comes  a  coach,"  he  ran 
on.  "Don't  the  red  wheels  look  well 
against  the  hedges?  It's  a  pretty  little 
country,  England,  isn't  it? — like  a  private 
park  or  a  model  village.  I  am  glad  to  get 
back  to  it  —  I  am  glad  to  see  the  three-and- 
six  signs  with  the  little  slanting  dash  be 
tween  the  shillings  and  pennies.  Yes,  even 
the  steam-rollers  and  the  man  with  the  red 
flag  in  front  are  welcome." 

"  I  suppose,"  said  Mrs.  Downs,  "  it's  be 
cause  one  has  been  so  long  on  the  ocean 
that  the  ride  to  London  seems  so  interest 
ing.  It  always  pays  me  for  the  entire  trip. 
Yes,"  she  said,  with  a  sigh,  "  in  spite  of  the 
patent -medicine  signs  they  have  taken  to 
putting  up  all  along  the  road.  It  seems  a 
pity  they  should  adopt  our  bad  habits  in 
stead  of  our  good  ones." 

"They  are  a  bit  slow  at  adopting  any 
thing,"  commented  Carlton.  "  Did  you 
know,  Mrs.  Downs,  that  electric  lights  are 


39 

still  as  scarce  in  London  as  they  are  in 
Timbuctoo  ?  Why,  I  saw  an  electric -light 
plant  put  up  in  a  Western  town  in  three 
days  once ;  there  were  over  a  hundred  burn 
ers  in  one  saloon,  and  the  engineer  who  put 
them  up  told  me  in  confidence  that — " 

What  the  chief  engineer  told  him  in  con 
fidence  was  never  disclosed,  for  at  that  mo 
ment  Miss  Morris  interrupted  him  with  a  sud 
den  sharp  exclamation. 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Carlton,"  she  exclaimed,  breath 
lessly,  "  listen  to  this !"  She  had  been  read 
ing  one  of  the  dozen  papers  which  Carlton 
had  purchased  at  the  station,  and  was  now 
shaking  one  of  them  at  him,  with  her  eyes 
fixed  on  the  open  page. 

"  My  dear  Edith,"  remonstrated  her  aunt, 
"  Mr.  Carlton  was  telling  us — " 

"Yes,  I  know,"  exclaimed  Miss  Morris, 
laughing,  "but  this  interests  him  much 
more  than  electric  lights.  "Who  do  you 
think  is  in  London?"  she  cried,  raising  her 


40 

eyes  to  his,  and  pausing  for  proper  dra 
matic  effect.  "The  Princess  Aline  of  Ho- 
henwald !" 

"  No  ?"  shouted  Carlton. 

"Yes,"  Miss  Morris  answered,  mocking 
his  tone.  "  Listen.  '  The  Queen's  Drawing- 
room  ' — em — e — m — '  on  her  right  was  the 
Princess  of  Wales' — em — m.  Oh,  I  can't 
find  it — no — yes,  here  it  is.  '  Next  to  her 
stood  the  Princess  Aline  of  Hohenwald. 
She  wore  a  dress  of  white  silk,  with  train  of 
silver  brocade  trimmed  with  fur.  Orna 
ments —  emeralds  and  diamonds;  orders — 
Victoria  and  Albert,  Jubilee  Commemora 
tion  Medal,  Coburg  and  Gotha,  and  Hohen 
wald  and  Grasse.' " 

"  By  Jove !"  cried  Carlton,  excitedly.  "  I 
say,  is  that  really  there?  Let  me  see  it, 
please,  for  myself." 

Miss  Morris  handed  him  the  paper,  with 
her  finger  on  the  paragraph,  and  picking  up 
another,  began  a  search  down  its  columns. 


41 

"  You  are  right,"  exclaimed  Carlton, 
solemnly;  "it's  she,  sure  enough.  And 
here  I've  been  within  two  hours  of  her 
and  didn't  know  it  ?" 

Miss  Morris  gave  another  triumphant 
cry,  as  though  she  had  discovered  a  vein 
of  gold. 

"Yes,  and  here  she  is  again,"  she  said, 
"  in  the  Gentlewoman :  '  The  Queen's  dress 
was  of  black,  as  usual,  but  relieved  by  a 
few  violet  ribbons  in  the  bonnet;  and 
Princess  Beatrice,  who  sat  by  her  mother's 
side,  showed  but  little  trace  of  the  anxiety 
caused  by  Princess  Ena's  accident.  Prin 
cess  Aline,  on  the  front  seat,  in  a  light 
brown  jacket  and  a  becoming  bonnet,  gave 
the  necessary  touch  to  a  picture  which 
Londoners  would  be  glad  to  look  upon 
more  often.' " 

Carlton  sat  staring  forward,  with  his 
hands  on  his  knees,  and  with  his  eyes 
open  wide  from  excitement.  He  present- 


42 

ed  so  unusual  an  appearance  of  bewilder 
ment  and  delight  that  Mrs.  Downs  looked 
at  him  and  at  her  niece  for  some  explana 
tion.  "The  young  lady  seems  to  interest 
you,"  said  she,  tentatively. 

"  She  is  the  most  charming  creature  in 
the  world,  Mrs.  Downs,"  cried  Carlton, 
"  and  I  was  going  all  the  way  to  Grasse  to 
see  her,  and  now  it  turns  out  that  she  is 
here  in  England,  within  a  few  miles  of  us." 
He  turned  and  waved  his  hands  at  the 
passing  landscape.  "  Every  minute  brings 
us  nearer  together." 

"And  you  didn't  feel  it  in  the  air!" 
mocked  Miss  Morris,  laughing.  "You  are 
a  pretty  poor  sort  of  a  man  to  let  a  girl 
tell  you  where  to  find  the  woman  you 
love." 

Carlton  did  not  answer,  but  stared  at  her 
very  seriously  and  frowned  intently.  "  Now 
I  have  got  to  begin  all  over  again  and  re 
adjust  things,"  he  said.  "We  might  have 


43 

guessed  she  would  be  in  London,  on  ac 
count  of  this  royal  wedding.  It  is  a  great 
pity  it  isn't  later  in  the  season,  when  there 
would  be  more  things  going  on  and  more 
chances  of  meeting  her.  Now  they  will  all 
be  interested  in  themselves,  and,  being  ex 
tremely  exclusive,  no  one  who  isn't  a 
cousin  to  the  bridegroom  or  an  Emperor 
would  have  any  chance  at  all.  Still,  I  can 
see  her!  I  can  look  at  her,  and  that's 
something." 

"It  is  better  than  a  photograph,  any 
way,"  said  Miss  Morris. 

"They  will  be  either  at  Buckingham 
Palace  or  at  Windsor,  or  they  will  stop  at 
Brown's,"  said  Carlton.  "All  royalties  go 
to  Brown's.  I  don't  know  why,  unless  it 
is  because  it  is  so  expensive;  or  maybe  it 
is  expensive  because  royalties  go  there ; 
but,  in  any  event,  if  they  are  not  at  the 
palace,  that  is  where  they  will  be,  and  that 
is  where  I  shall  have  to  go  too." 


44 

When  the  train  drew  up  at  Victoria  Sta 
tion,  Carlton  directed  Nolan  to  take  his 
things  to  Brown's  Hotel,  but  not  to  unload 
them  until  he  had  arrived.  Then  he  drove 
with  the  ladies  to  Cox's,  and  saw  them  set 
tled  there.  He  promised  to  return  at  once 
to  dine,  and  to  tell  them  what  he  had  dis 
covered  in  his  absence.  "You've  got  to 
help  me  in  this,  Miss  Morris,"  he  said,  ner 
vously.  "  I  am  beginning  to  feel  that  I  am 
not  worthy  of  her." 

"  Oh  yes,  you  are  !"  she  said,  laughing  ; 
"but  don't  forget  that  'it's  not  the  lover 
who  comes  to  woo,  but  the  lover's  way  of 
wooing,'  and  that  'faint  heart'  —  and  the 
rest  of  it." 

"Yes,  I  know,"  said  Carlton,  doubtfully; 
"  but  it's  a  bit  sudden,  isn't  it  ?" 

"  Oh,  I  am  ashamed  of  you !  You  are 
frightened." 

"No,  not  frightened,  exactly,"  said  the 
painter.  "  I  think  it's  just  natural  emotion." 


45 

As  Carlton  turned  into  Albemarle  Street 
he  noticed  a  red  carpet  stretching  from  the 
doorway  of  Brown's  Hotel  out  across  the 
sidewalk  to  a  carriage,  and  a  bareheaded 
»nan  bustling  about  apparently  assisting 
several  gentlemen  to  get  into  it.  This  and 
another  carriage  and  Nolan's  four-wheeler 
blocked  the  way;  but  without  waiting  for 
them  to  move  up,  Carlton  leaned  out  of 
his  hansom  and  called  the  bareheaded  man 
to  its  side. 

"Is  the  Duke  of  Hohenwald  stopping  at 
your  hotel?"  he  asked.  The  bareheaded 
man  answered  that  he  was. 

"  All  right,  Nolan,"  cried  Carlton.  "  They 
can  take  in  the  trunks." 

Hearing  this,  the  bareheaded  man  hast 
ened  to  help  Carlton  to  alight.  "That 
was  the  Duke  who  just  drove  off,  sir;  and 
those,"  he  said,  pointing  to  three  muffled 
figures  who  were  stepping  into  a  second 
carriage,  "  are  his  sisters,  the  Princesses." 


46 

Carlton  stopped  midway,  with  one  foot 
on  the  step  and  the  other  in  the  air. 

"The  deuce  they  are!"  he  exclaimed; 
"and  which  is — "  he  began,  eagerly,  and 
then  remembering  himself,  dropped  back 
on  the  cushions  of  the  hansom. 

He  broke  into  the  little  dining-room  at 
Cox's  in  so  excited  a  state  that  two  digni 
fied  old  gentlemen  who  were  eating  there 
sat  open-mouthed  in  astonished  disapproval. 
Mrs.  Downs  and  Miss  Morris  had  just  come 
down  stairs. 

"  I  have  seen  her !"  Carlton  cried,  ecstati 
cally  ;  "  only  half  an  hour  in  the  town,  and 
I've  seen  her  already!" 

"No,  really?"  exclaimed  Miss  Morris. 
"And  how  did  she  look?  Is  she  as  beauti 
ful  as  you  expected  ?" 

"Well,  I  can't  tell  yet,"  Carlton  answered. 
"  There  were  three  of  them,  and  they  were 
all  muffled  up,  and  which  one  of  the  three 
she  was  I  don't  know.  She  wasn't  labelled, 


47 

as  in  the  picture,  but  she  was  there,  and  I 
saw  her.  The  woman  I  love  was  one  of 
that  three,  and  I  have  engaged  rooms  at 
the  hotel,  and  this  very  night  the  same  roof 
shelters  us  both." 


fl 

"THE  course  of  true  love  certainly  runs 
smoothly  with  you,"  said  Miss  Morris,  as  they 
seated  themselves  at  the  table.  "What  is 
your  next  move  ?  What  do  you  mean  to  do 
now?" 

"  The  rest  is  very  simple,"  said  Carlton. 
"  To-morrow  morning  I  will  go  to  the  Row ; 
I  will  be  sure  to  find  some  one  there  who 
knows  all  about  them — where  they  are  going, 
and  who  they  are  seeing,  and  what  engage 
ments  they  may  have.  Then  it  will  only 
be  a  matter  of  looking  up  some  friend  in 
the  Household  or  in  one  of  the  embassies 
who  can  present  me." 

"  Oh,"  said  Miss  Morris,  in  the  tone  of 
keenest  disappointment,  "  but  that  is  such  a 
commonplace  ending!  You  started  out  so 


49 

romantically.  Couldn't  you  manage  to  meet 
her  in  a  less  conventional  way?" 

"  I  am  afraid  not,"  said  Carlton.  "  You 
see,  I  want  to  meet  her  very  much,  and  to 
meet  her  very  soon,  and  the  quickest  way  of 
meeting  her,  whether  it's  romantic  or  not, 
isn't  a  bit  too  quick  for  me.  There  will  be 
romance  enough  after  I  am  presented,  if  I 
have  my  way." 

But  Carlton  was  not  to  have  his  way ;  for 
he  had  overlooked  the  fact  that  it  requires  as 
many  to  make  an  introduction  as  a  bargain, 
and  he  had  left  the  Duke  of  Hohenwald  out 
of  his  considerations.  He  met  many  people 
he  knew  in  the  Row  the  next  morning ;  they 
asked  him  to  lunch,  and  brought  their  horses 
up  to  the  rail,  and  he  patted  the  horses' 
heads,  and  led  the  conversation  around  to 
the  royal  wedding,  and  through  it  to  the 
Hohenwalds.  He  learned  that  they  had  at 
tended  a  reception  at  the  German  Embassy 
on  the  previous  night,  and  it  was  one  of  the 


50 

secretaries  of  that  embassy  who  informed 
him  of  their  intended  departure  that  morn 
ing  on  the  eleven  o'clock  train  to  Paris. 

"  To  Paris !"  cried  Carlton,  in  consterna 
tion.  "  What !  all  of  them  ?" 

"  Yes,  all  of  them,  of  course.  Why  ?"  asked 
the  young  German.  But  Carlton  was  already 
dodging  across  the  tan-bark  to  Piccadilly  and 
waving  his  stick  at  a  hansom. 

Nolan  met  him  at  the  door  of  Brown's 
Hotel  with  an  anxious  countenance. 

"  Their  Royal  Highnesses  have  gone,  sir," 
he  said.  "  But  I've  packed  your  trunks  and 
sent  them  to  the  station.  Shall  I  follow 
them,  sir?"  r 

"Yes,"  said  Carlton.  "Follow  the  trunks 
and  follow  the  Hohenwalds.  I  will  come 
over  on  the  Club  train  at  four.  Meet  me  at 
the  station,  and  tell  me  to  what  hotel  they 
have  gone.  Wait ;  if  I  miss  you,  you  can 
find  me  at  the  Hotel  Continental ;  but  if  they 
go  straight  on  through  Paris,  you  go  with 


51 

them,  and  telegraph  me  here  and  to  the  Con 
tinental.  Telegraph  at  every  station,  so  I 
can  keep  track  of  you.  Have  you  enough 
money?" 

"  I  have,  sir  —  enough  for  a  long  trip, 
sir." 

"  Well,  you'll  need  it,"  said  Carlton,  grimly. 
"  This  is  going  to  be  a  long  trip.  It  is  twenty 
minutes  to  eleven  now;  you  will  have  to 
hurry.  Have  you  paid  my  bill  here  ?" 

"  I  have,  sir,"  said  Nolan. 

"  Then  get  off,  and  don't  lose  sight  of  those 
people  again." 

Carlton  attended  to  several  matters  of 
business,  and  then  lunched  with  Mrs.  Downs 
and  her  niece.  He  had  grown  to  like  them 
very  much,  and  was  sorry  to  lose  sight  of 
them,  but  consoled  himself  by  thinking  he 
would  see  them  a  few  days  at  least  in  Paris. 
He  judged  that  he  would  be  there  for  some 
time,  as  he  did  not  think  the  Princess  Aline 
and  her  sisters  would  pass  through  that  city 


52 

without  stopping  to  visit  the  shops  on  the 
Rue  de  la  Paix. 

"  All  women  are  not  princesses,"  he  argued, 
"  but  all  princesses  are  women." 

"  We  will  be  in  Paris  on  Wednesday,"  Mrs. 
Downs  told  him.  "  The  Orient  Express  leaves 
there  twice  a  week,  on  Mondays  and  Thurs 
days,  and  we  have  taken  an  apartment  for 
next  Thursday,  and  will  go  right  on  to  Con 
stantinople." 

"  But  I  thought  you  said  you  had  to  buy 
a  lot  of  clothes  there?"  Carlton  expostu 
lated. 

Mrs.  Downs  said  that  they  would  do  that 
on  their  way  home. 

Nolan  met  Carlton  at  the  station,  and  told 
him  that  he  had  followed  the  Hohenwalds  to 
the  H6tel  Meurice.  "  There  is  the  Duke,  sir, 
and  the  three  Princesses,"  Nolan  said,  "  and 
there  are  two  German  gentlemen  acting  as 
equerries,  and  an  English  captain,  a  sort  of 
A.D.C.  to  the  Duke,  and  two  elderly  ladies, 


53 

and  eight  servants.  They  travel  very  simple, 
sir,  and  their  people  are  in  undress  livery. 
Brown  and  red,  sir." 

Carlton  pretended  not  to  listen  to  this. 
He  had  begun  to  doubt  £>ut  that  Nolan's  zeal 
would  lead  him  into  some  indiscretion,  and 
would  end  disastrously  to  himself.  He  spent 
the  evening  alone  in  front  of  the  Cafe  de  la 
Paix,  pleasantly  occupied  in  watching  the 
life  and  movement  of  that  great  meeting  of 
the  highways.  It  did  not  seem  possible  that 
he  had  ever  been  away.  It  was  as  though 
he  had  picked  up  a  book  and  opened  it  at 
the  page  and  place  at  which  he  had  left  off 
reading  it  a  moment  before.  There  was  the 
same  type,  the  same  plot,  and  the  same 
characters,  who  were  doing  the  same  charac 
teristic  things.  Even  the  waiter  who  tipped 
out  his  coffee  knew  him ;  and  he  knew,  or 
felt  as  though  he  knew,  half  of  those  who 
passed,  or  who  shared  with  him  the  half  of 
the  sidewalk.  The  women  at  the  next  table 


54 

considered  the  slim,  good-looking  young 
American  with  friendly  curiosity,  and  the 
men  with  them  discussed  him  in  French, 
until  a  well-known  Parisian  recognized  Carl- 
ton  in  passing,  and  hailed  him  joyously  in 
the  same  language,  at  which  the  women 
laughed  and  the  men  looked  sheepishly  con 
scious. 

On  the  following  morning  Carlton  took  up 
his  post  in  the  open  court  of  the  Meurice, 
with  his  coffee  and  the  Figaro  to  excuse 
his  loitering  there.  He  had  not  been  occu 
pied  with  these  over -long  before  Nolan  ap 
proached  him,  in  some  excitement,  with  the 
information  that  their  Royal  Highnesses — as 
he  delighted  to  call  them — were  at  that  mo 
ment  "  coming  down  the  lift." 

Carlton  could  hear  their  voices,  and 
wished  to  step  around  the  corner  and  see 
them ;  it  was  for  this  chance  he  had  been 
waiting ;  but  he  could  not  afford  to  act  in  so 
undignified  a  manner  before  Nolan,  so  he 


55 

merely  crossed  his  legs  nervously,  and  told 
the  servant  to  go  back  to  the  rooms. 

"  Confound  him !"  he  said  ;  "  I  wish  he 
would  let  me  conduct  my  own  affairs  in  my 
own  way.  If  I  don't  stop  him,  he'll  carry 
the  Princess  Aline  off  by  force  and  send  me 
word  where  he  has  hidden  her." 

The  Hohenwalds  had  evidently  departed 
for  a  day's  outing,  as  up  to  five  o'clock  they 
had  not  returned ;  and  Carlton,  after  loiter 
ing  all  the  afternoon,  gave  up  waiting  for 
them,  and  went  out  to  d'ine  at  Laurent's,  in 
the  Champs  Elysees.  He  had  finished  his 
dinner,  and  was  leaning  luxuriously  forward, 
with  his  elbows  on  the  table,  and  knocking 
the  cigar  ashes  into  his  coffee-cup.  He  was 
pleasantly  content.  The  trees  hung  heavy 
with  leaves  over  his  head,  a  fountain  played 
and  overflowed  at  his  elbow,  and  the  lamps 
of  the  fiacres  passing  and  repassing  on  the 
Avenue  of  the  Champs  Elysees  shone  like 
giant  fire -flies  through  the  foliage.  The 


56 

touch  of  the  gravel  beneath  his  feet  empha 
sized  the  free,  out-of-door  charm  of  the 
place,  and  the  faces  of  the  others  around 
him  looked  more  than  usually  cheerful  in 
the  light  of  the  candles  flickering  under  the 
clouded  shades.  His  mind  had  gone  back 
to  his  earlier  student  days  in  Paris,  when  life 
always  looked  as  it  did  now  in  the  brief  half- 
hour  of  satisfaction  which  followed  a  cold 
bath  or  a  good  dinner,  and  he  had  forgotten 
himself  and  his  surroundings.  It  was  the 
voices  of  the  people  at  the  table  behind  him 
that  brought  him  back  to  the  present  mo 
ment.  A  man  was  talking;  he  spoke  in 
English,  with  an  accent. 

"  I  should  like  to  go  again  through  the 
Luxembourg,"  he  said;  "but  you  need  not 
be  bound  by  what  I  do." 

"  I  think  it  would  be  pleasanter  if  we  all 
keep  together,"  said  a  girl's  voice,  quietly. 
She  also  spoke  in  English,  and  with  the 
same  accent. 


57 

The  people  whose  voices  had  interrupted 
him  were  sitting  and  standing  around  a  long 
table,  which  the  waiters  had  made  large 
enough  for  their  party  by  placing  three  of 
the  smaller  ones  side  by  side ;  they  had  fin 
ished  their  dinner,  and  the  women,  who  sat 
with  their  backs  towards  Carlton,  were  pull 
ing  on  their  gloves. 

"  Which  is  it  to  be,  then  ?"  said  the  gentle 
man,  smiling.  "The  pictures  or  the  dress 
makers  ?" 

The  girl  who  had  first  spoken  turned  to 
the  one  next  to  her. 

"Which  would  you  rather  do,  Aline?"  she 
asked. 

Carlton  moved  so  suddenly  that  the  men 
behind  him  looked  at  him  curiously ;  but  he 
turned,  nevertheless,  in  his  chair  and  faced 
them,  and  in  order  to  excuse  his  doing  so 
beckoned  to  one  of  the  waiters.  He  was 
within  two  feet  of  the  girl  who  had  been 
called  "Aline."  She  raised  her  head  to 


58 

speak,  and  saw  Carlton  staring  open-eyed  at 
her.  She  glanced  at  him  for  an  instant,  as 
if  to  assure  herself  that  she  did  not  know 
him,  and  then,  turning  to  her  brother, 
smiled  in  the  same  tolerant,  amused  way  in 
which  she  had  so  often  smiled  upon  Carlton 
from  the  picture. 

"  I  am  afraid  I  had  rather  go  to  the  Bon 
Marche,"  she  said. 

One  of  the  waiters  stepped  in  between 
them,  and  Carlton  asked  him  for  his  bill ; 
but  when  it  came  he  left  it  lying  on  the 
plate,  and  sat  staring  out  into  the  night  be 
tween  the  candles,  puffing  sharply  on  nis 
cigar,  and  recalling  to  his  memory  his  first 
sight  of  the  Princess  Aline  of  Hohenwald. 

That  night,  as  he  turned  into  bed,  he 
gave  a  comfortable  sigh  of  content.  "  I  am 
glad  she  chose  the  dressmakers  instead  of 
the  pictures,"  he  said. 

Mrs.  Downs  and  Miss  Morris  arrived  in 
Paris  on  Wednesday,  and  expressed  their 


59 

anxiety  to  have  Carlton  lunch  with  them, 
and  to  hear  him  tell  of  the  progress  of  his 
love  -  affair.  There  was  not  much  to  tell ; 
the  Hohenwalds  had  come  and  gone  from 
the  hotel  as  freely  as  any  other  tourists  in 
Paris,  but  the  very  lack  of  ceremony  about 
their  movements  was  in  itself  a  difficulty. 
The  manner  of  acquaintance  he  could  make 
in  the  court  of  the  Hotel  Meurice  with  one 
of  the  men  over  a  cup  of  coffee  or  a  glass 
of  bock  would  be  as  readily  discontinued 
as  begun,  and  for  his  purpose  it  would  have 
been  much  better  if  the  Hohenwalds  had 
been  living  in  state  with  a  visitors'  book 
and  a  chamberlain. 

On  Wednesday  evening  Carlton  took  the 
ladies  to  the  opera,  where  the  Hohenwalds 
occupied  a  box  immediately  opposite  them. 
Carlton  pretended  to  be  surprised  at  this 
fact,  but  Mrs.  Downs  doubted  his  sin 
cerity. 

"I  saw  Nolan  talking  to  their  courier  to- 


6o 

day,"  she  said,  "  and  I  fancy  he  asked  a  few 
leading  questions." 

"  Well,  he  didn't  learn  much  if  he  did," 
he  said.  "  The  fellow  only  talks  German." 

"  Ah,  then  he  has  been  asking  questions !" 
said  Miss  Morris. 

"Well,  he  does  it  on  his  own  responsibil 
ity,"  said  Carlton,  "  for  I  told  him  to  have 
nothing  to  do  with  servants.  He  has  too 
much  zeal,  has  Nolan ;  I'm  afraid  of  him." 

"  If  you  were  only  half  as  interested  as 
he  is,"  said  Miss  Morris,  "  you  would  have 
known  her  long  ago." 

"  Long  ago  ?"  exclaimed  Carlton.  "  I  only 
saw  her  four  days  since." 

"She  is  certainly  very  beautiful,"  said 
Miss  Morris,  looking  across  the  auditorium. 

"  But  she  isn't  there,"  said  Carlton. 
"  That's  the  eldest  sister ;  the  two  other  sis 
ters  went  out  on  the  coach  this  morning  to 
Versailles,  and  were  too  tired  to  come  to 
night.  At  least,  so  Nolan  says.  He  seems 


6i 

to  have  established  a  friendship  for  their 
English  maid,  but  whether  it's  on  my  ac 
count  or  his  own  I  don't  know.  I  doubt 
his  unselfishness." 

"  How  disappointing  of  her !"  said  Miss 
Morris.  And  after  you  had  selected  a  box 
just  across  the  way,  too.  It  is  such  a  pity 
to  waste  it  on  us."  Carlton  smiled,  and 
looked  up  at  her  impudently,  as  though  he 
meant  to  say  something;  but  remembering 
that  she  was  engaged  to  be  married,  changed 
his  mind,  and  lowered  his  eyes  to  his  pro 
gramme. 

"Why  didn't  you  say  it?"  asked  Miss 
Morris,  calmly,  turning  her  glass  to  the 
stage.  "  Wasn't  it  pretty  ?" 

"  No,"  said  Carlton — "  not  pretty  enough." 

The  ladies  left  the  hotel  the  next  day  to 
take  the  Orient  Express,  which  left  Paris  at 
six  o'clock.  They  had  bidden  Carlton  good 
bye  at  four  the  same  afternoon,  and  as  he 
had  come  to  their  rooms  for  that  purpose, 


62 

they  were  in  consequence  a  little  surprised 
to  see  him  at  the  station,  running  wildly 
along  the  platform,  followed  by  Nolan  and 
a  porter.  He  came  into  their  compartment 
after  the  train  had  started,  and  shook  his 
head  sadly  at  them  from  the  door. 

"  Well,  what  do  you  think  of  this?"  he 
said.  "  You  can't  get  rid  of  me,  you  see. 
I'm  going  with  you." 

"Going  with  us?"  asked  Mrs.  Downs. 
"  How  far  ?" 

Carlton  laughed,  and,  coming  inside, 
dropped  onto  the  cushions  with  a  sigh.  "  I 
don't  know,"  he  said,  dejectedly.  "  All  the 
way,  I'm  afraid.  That  is,  I  mean,  I'm  very 
glad  I  am  to  have  your  society  for  a  few 
days  more ;  but  really  I  didn't  bargain  for 
this." 

"  You  don't  mean  to  tell  me  that  they  are 
on  this  train?"  said  Miss  Morris. 

"  They  are,"  said  Carlton.  "  They  have  a 
car  to  themselves  at  the  rear.  They  only 


_63__ 

made  up  their  minds  to  go  this  morning, 
and  they  nearly  succeeded  in  giving  me  the 
slip  again ;  but  it  seems  that  their  English 
maid  stopped  Nolan  in  the  hall  to  bid  him 
good-bye,  and  so  he  found  out  their  plans. 
They  are  going  direct  to  Constantinople, 
and  then  to  Athens.  They  had  meant  to 
stay  in  Paris  two  weeks  longer,  it  seems, 
but  they  changed  their  minds  last  night.  It 
was  a  very  close  shave  for  me.  I  only  got 
back  to  the  hotel  in  time  to  hear  from  the 
concierge  that  Nolan  had  flown  with  all  of 
my  things,  and  left  word  for  me  to  follow. 
Just  fancy!  Suppose  I  had  missed  the 
train,  and  had  had  to  chase  him  clear  across 
the  continent  of  Europe  with  not  even  a 
razor — " 

"  I  am  glad,"  said  Miss  Morris,  that  Nolan 
has  not  taken  a  fancy  to  me.  I  doubt  if  I 
could  resist  such  impetuosity." 

The  Orient  Express,  in  which  Carlton  and 
the  mistress  of  his  heart  and  fancy  were 


speeding  towards  the  horizon's  utmost  pur 
ple  rim,  was  made  up  of  six  cars,  one  dining- 
car  with  a  smoking-apartment  attached,  and 
five  sleeping-cars,  including  the  one  reserved 
for  the  Duke  of  Hohenwald  and  his  suite. 
These  cars  were  lightly  built,  and  rocked  in 
consequence,  and  the  dust  raised  by  the 
rapid  movement  of  the  train  swept  through 
cracks  and  open  windows,  and  sprinkled  the 
passengers  with  a  fine  and  irritating  coating 
of  soot  and  earth.  There  was  one  servant 
to  the  entire  twenty -two  passengers.  He 
spoke  eight  languages,  jind  never  slept ;  but 
as  his  services  were  in  demand  by  several 
people  in  as  many  different  cars  at  the  same 
moment  he  satisfied  no  one,  and  the  com 
plaint-box  in  the  smoking-car  was  stuffed 
full  to  the  slot  in  consequence  before  they 
had  crossed  the  borders  of  France. 

Carlton  and  Miss  Morris  went  out  upon 
one  of  the  platforms  and  sat  down  upon 
a  tool-box.  "  It  isn't  as  comfortable  here 


65 

as  in  an  observation  -  car  at  home,"  said 
Carlton,  "  but  it's  just  as  noisy." 

He  pointed  out  to  her  from  time  to  time 
the  peasants  gathering  twigs,  and  the  blue- 
bloused  gendarmes  guarding  the  woods  and 
the  fences  skirting  them.  "  Nothing  is  al 
lowed  to  go  to  waste  in  this  country,"  he 
said.  "  It  looks  as  though  they  went  over  it 
once  a  month  with  a  lawn  -  mower  and  a 
pruning. knife.  I  believe  they  number  the 
the  trees  as  we  number  the  houses." 

"And  did  you  notice  the  great  fortifica 
tions  covered  with  grass?"  she  said.  "We 
have  passed  such  a  lot  of  them." 

Carlton  nodded. 

"  And  did  you  notice  that  they  all  faced 
only  one  way  ?" 

Carlton  laughed,  and  nodded  again. 
"  Towards  Germany,"  he  said. 

By  the  next  day  they  had  left  the  tall 
poplars  and  white  roads  behind  them,  and 
were  crossing  the  land  of  low  shiny  black 


66 

helmets  and  brass  spikes.  They  had  come 
into  a  country  of  low  mountains  and  black 
forests,  with  old  fortified  castles  topping  the 
hills,  and  with  red-roofed  villages  scattered 
around  the  base. 

"  How  very  military  it  all  is !"  Mrs.  Downs 
said.  "  Even  the  men  at  the  lonely  little 
stations  in  the  forests  wear  uniforms;  and 
do  you  notice  how  each  of  them  rolls  up  his 
red  flag  and  holds  it  like  a  sword,  and  sa 
lutes  the  train  as  it  passes?" 

They  spent  the  hour  during  which  the 
train  shifted  from  one  station  in  Vienna  to 
the  other  driving  about  in  an  open  carriage, 
and  stopped  for  a  few  moments  in  front  of  a 
cafe  to  drink  beer  and  to  feel  solid  earth 
under  them  again,  returning  to  the  train 
with  a  feeling  which  was  almost  that  of 
getting  back  to  their  own  rooms.  Then 
they  came  to  great  steppes  covered  with 
long  thick  grass,  and  flooded  in  places  with 
little  lakes  of  broken  ice ;  great  horned  cat- 


6? 

tie  stood  knee-deep  in  this  grass,  and  at  the 
villages  and  way-stations  were  people  wear 
ing  sheepskin  jackets  and  waistcoats  covered 
with  silver  buttons.  In  one  place  there  was 
a  wedding  procession  waiting  for  the  train 
to  pass,  with  the  friends  of  the  bride  and 
groom  in  their  best  clothes,  the  women  with 
silver  breastplates,  and  boots  to  their  knees. 
It  seemed  hardly  possible  that  only  two 
days  before  they  had  seen  another  wedding 
party  in  the  Champs  Elysees,  where  the 
men  wore  evening  dress,  and  the  women 
were  bareheaded  and  with  long  trains.  In 
forty -eight  hours  they  had  passed  through 
republics,  principalities,  empires,  and  king 
doms,  and  from  spring  to  winter.  It  was 
like  walking  rapidly  over  a  painted  pano 
rama  of  Europe. 

On  the  second  evening  Carlton  went  off 
into  the  smoking-car  alone.  The  Duke  of 
Hohenwald  and  two  of  his  friends  had  fin 
ished  a  late  supper,  and  were  seated  in  the 


68 

apartment  adjoining  it.  The  Duke  was  a 
young  man  with  a  heavy  beard  and  eye 
glasses.  He  was  looking  over  an  illus 
trated  catalogue  of  the  Salon,  and  as  Carlton 
dropped  on  the  sofa  opposite  the  Duke 
raised  his  head  and  looked  at  him  curiously, 
and  then  turned  over  several  pages  of  the 
catalogue  and  studied  one  of  them,  and 
then  back  at  Carlton,  as  though  he  were 
comparing  him  with  something  on  the  page 
before  him.  Carlton  was  looking  out  at  the 
night,  but  he  could  follow  what  was  going 
forward,  as  it  was  reflected  in  the  glass  of 
the  car  window.  He  saw  the  Duke  hand  the 
catalogue  to  one  of  the  equerries,  who  raised 
his  eyebrows  and  nodded  his  head  in  assent. 
Carlton  wondered  what  this  might  mean, 
until  he  remembered  that  there  was  a  por 
trait  of  himself  by  a  French  artist  in  the 
Salon,  and  concluded  it  had  been  repro 
duced  in  the  catalogue.  He  could  think  of 
nothing  else  which  would  explain  the  inter 


69 

est  the  two  men  showed  in  him.  On  the 
morning  following  he  sent  Nolan  out  to  pur 
chase  a  catalogue  at  the  first  station  at 
which  they  stopped,  and  found  that  his 
guess  was  a  correct  one.  A  portrait  of  him 
self  had  been  reproduced  in  black  and 
white,  with  his  name  below  it. 

"  Well,  they  know  who  I  am  now,"  he 
said  to  Miss  Morris,  "even  if  they  don't 
know  me.  That  honor  is  still  in  store  for 
them." 

"  I  wish  they  did  not  lock  themselves  up 
so  tightly,"  said  Miss  Morris.  "  I  want  to 
see  her  very  much.  Cannot  we  walk  up 
and  down  the  platform  at  the  next  station? 
She  may  be  at  the  window." 

"  Of  course,"  said  Carlton.  "  You  could 
have  seen  her  at  Buda-Pesth  if  you  had 
spoken  of  it.  She  was  walking  up  and 
down  then.  The  next  time  the  train  stops 
we  will  prowl  up  and  down  and  feast  our 
eyes  upon  her." 


70 

But  Miss  Morris  had  her  wish  gratified 
without  that  exertion.  The  Hohenwalds 
were  served  in  the  dining-car  after  the  othei 
passengers  had  finished,  and  were  in  conse 
quence  only  to  be  seen  when  they  passed 
by  the  doors  of  the  other  compartments. 
But  this  same  morning,  after  luncheon,  the 
three  Princesses,  instead  of  returning  to  their 
own  car,  seated  themselves  in  the  compart 
ment  adjoining  the  dining  -  car,  while  the 
men  of  their  party  lit  their  cigars  and  sat  in 
a  circle  around  them. 

"  I  was  wondering  how  long  they  could 
stand  three  men  smoking  in  one  of  the  box 
es  they  call  cars,"  said  Mrs.  Downs.  She 
was  seated  between  Miss  Morris  and  Carl- 
ton,  directy  opposite  the  Hohenwalds,  and 
so  near  them  that  she  had  to  speak  in  a 
whisper.  To  avoid  doing  this  Miss  Morris 
asked  Carlton  for  a  pencil,  and  scribbled 
with  it  in  the  novel  she  held  on  her  lap. 
Then  she  passed  them  both  back  to  him, 


and  said,  aloud:  "Have  you  read  this?  It 
has  such  a  pretty  dedication."  The  dedica 
tion  read,  "  Which  is  Aline  ?"  And  Carlton, 
taking  the  pencil  in  his  turn,  made  a  rapid 
sketch  of  her  on  the  fly-leaf,  and  wrote  be 
neath  it :  "  This  is  she.  Do  you  wonder 
I  travelled  four  thousand  miles  to  see 
her?" 

Miss  Morris  took  the  book  again,  and 
glanced  at  the  sketch,  and  then  at  the  three 
Princesses,  and  nodded  her  head.  "  It  is 
very  beautiful,"  she  said,  gravely,  looking 
out  at  the  passing  landscape. 

"  Well,  not  beautiful  exactly,"  answered 
Carlton,  surveying  the  hills  critically,  "  but 
certainly  very  attractive.  It  is  worth  trav 
elling  a  long  way  to  see,  and  I  should  think 
one  would  grow  very  fond  of  it." 

Miss  Morris  tore  the  fly-leaf  out  of  the 
book,  and  slipped  it  between  the  pages. 
"  May  I  keep  it  ?"  she  said.  Carlton  nod 
ded.  "  And  will  you  sign  it  ?"  she  asked, 


72 

smiling.  Carlton  shrugged  his  shoulders, 
and  laughed.  "  If  you  wish  it,"  he  an 
swered. 

The  Princess  wore  a  gray  cheviot  travel 
ling  dress,  as  did  her  sisters,  and  a  gray  Al 
pine  hat.  She  was  leaning  back,  talking  to 
the  English  captain  who  accompanied  them, 
and  laughing.  Carlton  thought  he  had  nev 
er  seen  a  woman  who  appealed  so  strongly 
to .  every  taste  of  which  he  was  possessed. 
She  seemed  so  sure  of  herself,  so  alert,  and 
yet  so  gracious,  so  easily  entertained,  and 
yet,  when  she  turned  her  eyes  towards  the 
strange,  dismal  landscape,  so  seriously  intent 
upon  its  sad  beauty.  The  English  captain 
dropped  his  head,  and  with  the  pretence  of 
pulling  at  his  mustache,  covered  his  mouth 
as  he  spoke  to  her.  When  he  had  finished 
he  gazed  consciously  at  the  roof  of  the  car, 
and  she  kept  her  eyes  fixed  steadily  at  the 
object  towards  which  they  had  turned  when 
he  had  ceased  speaking,  and  then,  after  a 


73 

decent  pause,  turned  her  eyes,  as  Carlton 
knew  she  would,  towards  him. 

"  He  was  telling  her  who  I  am,"  he 
thought,  "  and  about  the  picture  in  the  cata 
logue." 

In  a  few  moments  she  turned  to  her  sister 
and  spoke  to  her,  pointing  out  at  something 
in  the  scenery,  and  the  same  pantomime 
was  repeated,  and  again  with  the  third  sister. 

"  Did  you  see  those  girls  talking  about 
you,  Mr.  Carlton  ?"  Miss  Morris  asked,  after 
they  had  left  the  car. 

Carlton  said  it  looked  as  though  they 
were. 

"  Of  course  they  were,"  said  Miss  Morris. 
"That  Englishman  told  the  Princess  Aline 
something  about  you,  and  then  she  told  her 
sister,  and  she  told  the  eldest  one.  It  would 
be  nice  if  they  inherit  their  father's  interest 
in  painting,  wouldn't  it  ?" 

"  I  would  rather  have  it  degenerate  into 
an  interest  in  painters  myself,"  said  Carlton. 


74 

Miss  Morris  discovered,  after  she  had  re 
turned  to  her  own  car,  that  she  had  left  the 
novel  where  she  had  been  sitting,  and  Carl- 
ton  sent  Nolan  back  for  it.  It  had  slipped 
to  the  floor,  and  the  fly-leaf  upon  which 
Carlton  had  sketched  the  Princess  Aline  was 
lying  face  down  beside  it.  Nolan  picked  up 
the  leaf,  and  saw  the  picture,  and  read  the 
inscription  below :  "  This  is  she.  Do  you 
wonder  I  travelled  four  thousand  miles  to 
see  her?" 

He  handed  the  book  to  Miss  Morris,  and 
was  backing  out  of  the  compartment,  when 
she  stopped  him. 

"  There  was  a  loose  page  in  this,  Nolan," 
she  said.  "  It's  gone;  did  you  see  it?" 

"A  loose  page,  miss?"  said  Nolan,  with 
some  concern.  "  Oh,  yes,  miss ;  I  was  going 
to  tell  you  ;  there  was  a  scrap  of  paper  blew 
away  when  I  was  passing  between  the  car 
riages.  Was  it  something  you  wanted, 
miss  ?" 


75 

"  Something  I  wanted !"  exclaimed  Miss 
Morris,  in  dismay. 

Carlton  laughed  easily.  "It  is  just  as 
well  I  didn't  sign  it,  after  all,"  he  said.  "  I 
don't  want  to  proclaim  my  devotion  to  any 
Hungarian  gypsy  who  happens  to  read  Eng 
lish." 

"  You  must  draw  me  another,  as  a  souve 
nir,"  Miss  Morris  said. 

Nolan  continued  on  through  the  length  of 
the  car  until  he  had  reached  the  one  occu 
pied  by  the  Hohenwalds,  where  he  waited 
on  the  platform  until  the  English  maid 
servant  saw  him  and  came  to  the  door  of 
the  carriage. 

"What  hotel  are  your  people  going 
to  stop  at  in  Constantinople?"  Nolan 
asked. 

"The  Grande  -  Bretagne,  I  think,"  she  an 
swered. 

"That's  right,"  said  Nolan,  approvingly. 
"  That's  the  one  we  are  going  to.  I  thought 


76 

I  would  come  and  tell  you  about  it.  And, 
by-the-way,"  he  said,  "  here's  a  picture  some 
body's  made  of  your  Princess  Aline.  She 
dropped  it,  and  I  picked  it  up.  You  had 
better  give  it  back  to  her.  Well,"  he  added, 
politely,  "  I'm  glad  you  are  coming  to  our 
hotel  in  Constantinople ;  it's  pleasant  having 
some  one  to  talk  to  who  can  speak  your 
own  tongue." 

The  girl  returned  to  the  car,  and  left  No 
lan  alone  upon  the  platform.  He  exhaled 
a  long  breath  of  suppressed  excitement,  and 
then  gazed  around  nervously  upon  the  emp 
ty  landscape. 

"  I  fancy  that's  going  to  hurry  things  up 
a  bit,"  he  murmured,  with  an  anxious  smile; 
"  he'd  never  get  along  at  all  if  it  wasn't  for 
me." 

For  reasons  possibly  best  understood  by 
the  German  ambassador,  the  state  of  the  Ho- 
henwalds  at  Constantinople  differed  greatly 
from  that  which  had  obtained  at  the  French 


77 

capital.  They  no  longer  came  and  went 
as  they  wished,  or  wandered  through  the 
show -places  of  the  city  like  ordinary  tour 
ists.  There  was,  on  the  contrary,  not  only 
a  change  in  their  manner  towards  others, 
but  there  was  an  insistence  on  their  part  of 
a  difference  in  the  attitude  of  others  tow 
ards  themselves.  This  showed  itself  in  the 
reserving  of  the  half  of  the  hotel  for  their 
use,  and  in  the  haughty  bearing  of  the 
equerries,  who  appeared  unexpectedly  in 
magnificent  uniforms.  The  visitors'  book 
was  covered  with  the  autographs  of  all  of 
the  important  people  in  the  Turkish  capi 
tal,  and  the  Sultan's  carriages  stood  con 
stantly  before  the  door  of  the  hotel,  await 
ing  their  pleasure,  until  they  became  as  fa 
miliar  a  sight  as  the  street  dogs,  or  as  cabs 
in  a  hansom-cab  rank. 

And  in  following  out  the  programme 
which  had  been  laid  down  for  her,  the 
Princess  Aline  became  even  less  accessible 


78 

to  Carlton  than  before,  and  he  grew  despe 
rate  and  despondent. 

"  If  the  worst  comes,"  he  said  to  Miss 
Morris,  "  I  shall  tell  Nolan  to  give  an  alarm 
of  fire  some  night,  and  then  I  will  run  in 
and  rescue  her  before  they  find  out  there  is 
no  fire.  Or  he  might  frighten  the  horses 
some  day,  and  give  me  a  chance  to  stop 
them.  We  might  even  wait  u'ntil  we  reach 
Greece,  and  have  her  carried  off  by  brig 
ands,  who  would  only  give  her  up  to  me." 

"  There  are  no  more  brigands  in  Greece," 
said  Miss  Morris ;  "  and  besides,  why  do  you 
suppose  they  would  only  give  her  up  to 
you?" 

"Because  they  would  be  imitation  brig 
ands,"  said  Carlton,  "  and  would  be  paid  to 
give  her  up  to  no  one  else." 

"  Oh,  you  plan  very  well,"  scoffed  Miss 
Morris,  "  but  you  don't  do  anything." 

Carlton  was  saved  the  necessity  of  doing 
anything  that  same  morning,  when  the  Eng- 


79 

lish  captain  in  attendance  on  the  Duke  sent 
his  card  to  Carlton's  room.  He  came,  he 
explained,  to  present  the  Prince's  compli 
ments,  and  would  it  be  convenient  for  Mr. 
Carlton  to  meet  the  Duke  that  afternoon  ? 
Mr.  Carlton  suppressed  an  unseemly  desire 
to  shout,  and  said,  after  a  moment's  consid 
eration,  that  it  would.  He  then  took  the 
English  captain  down  stairs  to  the  smoking- 
room,  and  rewarded  him  for  his  agreeable 
message. 

The  Duke  received  Carlton  in  the  after 
noon,  and  greeted  him  most  cordially,  and 
with  as  much  ease  of  manner  as  it  is  possi 
ble  for  a  man  to  possess  who  has  never  en 
joyed  the  benefits  of  meeting  other  men  on 
an  equal  footing.  He  expressed  his  pleas 
ure  in  knowing  an  artist  with  whose  work 
he  was  so  familiar,  and  congratulated  him 
self  on  the  happy  accident  which  had 
brought  them  both  to  the  same  hotel. 

"  I  have  more  than  a  natural  interest  in 


8o 

meeting  you,"  said  the  Prince,  "and  for  a 
reason  which  you  may  or  may  not  know. 
I  thought  possibly  you  could  help  me  some 
what.  I  have  within  the  past  few  days 
come  into  the  possession  of  two  of  your 
paintings;  they  are  studies,  rather,  but  to 
me  they  are  even  more  desirable  than  the 
finished  work ;  and  I  am  not  correct  in  say 
ing  that  they  have  come  to  me  exactly,  but 
to  my  sister,  the  Princess  Aline." 

Carlton  could  not  withhold  a  certain  start 
of  surprise.  He  had  not  expected  that  his 
gift  would  so  soon  have  arrived,  but  his 
face  showed  only  polite  attention. 

"The  studies  were  delivered  to  us  in 
London,"  continued  the  Duke.  "  They  are 
of  Ludwig  the  tragedian,  and  of  the  Ger 
man  Prime  Minister,  two  most  valuable 
works,  and  especially  interesting  to  us. 
They  came  without  any  note  or  message 
which  would  inform  us  who  had  sent  them, 
and  when  my  people  made  inquiries,  the 


8i 

dealer  refused  to  tell  them  from  whom  they 
had  come.  He  had  been  ordered  to  for 
ward  them  to  Grasse,  but,  on  learning  of 
our  presence  in  London,  sent  them  direct 
to  our  hotel  there.  Of  course  it  is  embar 
rassing  to  have  so  valuable  a  present  from 
an  anonymous  friend,  especially  so  for  my 
sister,  to  whom  they  were  addressed,  and 
I  thought  that,  besides  the  pleasure  of  meet 
ing  one  of  whose  genius  I  am  so  warm  an 
admirer,  I  might  also  learn  something  which 
would  enable  me  to  discover  who  our  friend 
may  be."  He  paused,  but  as  Carlton  said 
nothing,  continued:  "As  it  is  now,  I  do  not 
feel  that  I  can  accept  the  pictures ;  and  yet 
I  know  no  one  to  whom  they  can  be  re 
turned,  unless  I  send  them  to  the  dealer." 

"  It  sounds  very  mysterious,"  said  Carl- 
ton,  smiling ;  "  and  I  am  afraid  I  cannot 
help  you.  What  work  I  did  in  Germany 
was  sold  in  Berlin  before  I  left,  and  in  a 
year  may  have  changed  hands  several  times. 


82 

The  studies  of  which  you  speak  are  unim 
portant,  and  merely  studies,  and  could  pass 
from  hand  to  hand  without  much  record 
having  been  kept  of  them;  but  personally 
I  am  not  able  to  give  you  any  information 
which  would  assist  you  in  tracing  them." 

"Yes,"  said  the  Duke.  "Well,  then,  I 
shall  keep  them  until  I  can  learn  more ;  and 
if  we  can  learn  nothing,  I  shall  return  them 
to  the  dealer." 

Carlton  met  Miss  Morris  that  afternoon 
in  a  state  of  great  excitement.  "  It's  come !" 
he  cried — "  it's  come !  I  am  to  meet  her 
this  week.  I  have  met  her  brother,  and  he 
has  asked  me  to  dine  with  them  on  Thurs 
day  night ;  that's  the  day  before  they  leave 
for  Athens ;  and  he  particularly  mentioned 
that  his  sisters  would  be  at  the  dinner,  and 
that  it  would  be  a  pleasure  to  present  me. 
It  seems  that  the  eldest  paints,  and  all  of 
them  love  art  for  art's  sake,  as  their  father 
taught  them  to  do ;  and,  for  all  we  know, 


83 

he  may  make  me  court  painter,  and  I  shall 
spend  the  rest  of  my  life  at  Grasse  painting 
portraits  of  the  Princess  Aline,  at  the  age 
of  twenty-two,  and  at  all  future  ages.  And 
if  he  does  give  me  a  commission  to  paint 
her,  I  can  tell  you  now  in  confidence  that 
that  picture  will  require  more  sittings  than 
any  other  picture  ever  painted  by  man. 
Her  hair  will  have  turned  white  by  the  time 
it  is  finished,  and  the  gown  she  started  to 
pose  in  will  have  become  forty  years  behind 
the  fashion !" 

On  the  morning  following,  Carlton  and 
Mrs.  Downs  and  her  niece,  with  all  the 
tourists  in  Constantinople,  were  placed  in 
open  carriages  by  their  dragomans,  and 
driven  in  a  long  procession  to  the  Seraglio 
to  see  the  Sultan's  treasures.  Those  of 
them  who  had  waited  two  weeks  for  this 
chance  looked  aggrieved  at  the  more  fort 
unate  who  had  come  at  the  eleventh  hour 
on  the  last  night's  steamer,  and  seemed  to 


84 

think  these  latter  had  attained  the  privilege 
without  sufficient  effort.  The  ministers  of 
the  different  legations — as  is  the  harmless 
custom  of  such  gentlemen — had  impressed 
every  one  for  whom  they  had  obtained  per 
mission  to  see  the  treasures  with  the  great 
importance  of  the  service  rendered,  and  had 
succeeded  in  making  every  one  feel  either 
especially  honored  or  especially  uncomfort 
able  at  having  given  them  so  much  trouble. 
This  sense  of  obligation,  and  the  fact  that 
the  dragomans  had  assured  the  tourists 
that  they  were  for  the  time  being  the 
guests  of  the  Sultan,  awed  and  depressed 
most  of  the  visitors  to  such  an  extent  that 
their  manner  in  the  long  procession  of  car 
riages  suggested  a  funeral  cortege,  with  the 
Hohenwalds  in  front,  escorted  by  Beys  and 
Pashas,  as  chief  mourners.  The  procession 
halted  at  the  palace,  and  the  guests  of  the 
Sultan  were  received  by  numerous  effendis 
in  single  -  button  frock-coats  and  freshly 


ironed  fezzes,  who  served  them  with  glasses, 
of  water,  and  a  huge  bowl  of  some  sweet 
stuff,  of  which  every  one  was  supposed  to 
take  a  spoonful.  There  was  at  first  a  gen 
eral  fear  among  the  Cook's  tourists  that 
there  would  not  be  enough  of  this  to  go 
round,  which  was  succeeded  by  a  greater 
anxiety  lest  they  should  be  served  twice. 
Some  of  the  tourists  put  the  sweet  stuff  in 
their  mouths  direct  and  licked  the  spoon, 
and  others  dropped  it  off  the  spoon  into 
the  glass  of  water,  and  stirred  it  about  and 
sipped  at  it,  and  no  one  knew  who  had 
done  the  right  thing,  not  even  those  who 
happened  to  have  done  it.  Carlton  and 
Miss  Morris  went  out  on  to  the  terrace 
while  this  ceremony  was  going  forward, 
and  looked  out  over  the  great  panorama 
of  waters,  with  the  Sea  of  Marmora  on 
one  side,  the  Golden  Horn  on  the  other, 
and  the  Bosporus  at  their  feet.  The  sun 
was  shining  mildly,  and  the  waters  were 


86 

stirred  by  great  and  little  vessels;  before 
them  on  the  opposite  bank  rose  the  dark 
green  cypresses  which  marked  the  grim 
cemetery  of  England's  dead,  and  behind 
them  were  the  great  turtle-backed  mosques 
and  pencil-like  minarets  of  the  two  cities, 
and  close  at  hand  the  mosaic  walls  and  beau 
tiful  gardens  of  Constantine. 

"  Your  friends  the  Hohenwalds  don't  seem 
to  know  you  this  morning,"  she  said. 

"  Oh  yes ;  he  spoke  to  me  as  we  left  the 
hotel,"  Carlton  answered.  "  But  they  are  on 
parade  at  present.  There  are  a  lot  of  their 
countrymen  among  the  tourists." 

"I  feel  rather  sorry  for  them,"  Miss  Mor 
ris  said,  looking  at  the  group  with  an  amused 
smile.  "  Etiquette  cuts  them  off  from  so 
much  innocent  amusement.  Now,  you  are 
a  gentleman,  and  the  Duke  presumably  is, 
and  why  should  you  not  go  over  and  say, 
'Your  Highness,  I  wish  you  would  present 
me  to  your  sister,  whom  I  am  to  meet  at  din- 


87 

ner  to-morrow  night.  I  admire  her  vety 
much,'  and  then  you  could  point  out  the  his 
torical  features  to  her,  and  show  her  where 
they  have  finished  off  a  blue  and  green  tiled 
wall  with  a  rusty  tin  roof,  and  make  pretty 
speeches  to  her.  It  wouldn't  hurt  her,  and 
it  would  do  you  a  lot  of  good.  The  sim 
plest  way  is  always  the  best  way,  it  seems 
to  me." 

"  Oh  yes,  of  course,"  said  Carlton.  "  Sup 
pose  he  came  over  here  and  said :  '  Carlton, 
I  wish  you  would  present  me  to  your  young 
American  friend.  I  admire  her  very  much.' 
I  would  probably  say :  '  Do  you  ?  Well,  you 
will  have  to  wait  until  she  expresses  some 
desire  to  meet  you.'  No;  etiquette  is  all 
right  in  itself,  only  some  people  don't  know 
its  laws,  and  that  is  the  one  instance  to  my 
mind  where  ignorance  of  the  law  is  no  ex 
cuse." 

Carlton  left  Miss  Morris  talking  with  the 
Secretary  of  the  American  Legation,  and 


88 

went  to  look  for  Mrs.  Downs.  When  he 
returned  he  found  that  the  young  Secretary 
had  apparently  asked  and  obtained  permis 
sion  to  present  the  Duke's  equerries  and  some 
of  his  diplomatic  confreres,  who  were  stand 
ing  now  about  her  in  an  attentive  semicircle, 
and  pointing  out  the  different  palaces  and 
points  of  interest.  Carlton  was  somewhat 
disturbed  at  the  sight,  and  reproached  him 
self  with  not  having  presented  any  one  to  her 
before.  He  was  sure  now  that  she  must 
have  had  a  dull  time  of  it ;  but  he  wished, 
nevertheless,  that  if  she  was  to  meet  other 
men,  the  Secretary  had  allowed  him  to  act 
as  master  of  ceremonies. 

"  I  suppose  you  know,"  that  gentleman 
was  saying  as  Carlton  came  up,  "  that  when 
you  pass  by  Abydos,  on  the  way  to  Athens, 
you  will  see  where  Leander  swam  the  Hel 
lespont  to  meet  Hero.  That  little  white 
light -house  is  called  Leander  in  honor  of 
him.  It  makes  rather  an  interesting  con- 


trast — does  it  not? — to  think  of  that  chap 
swimming  along  in  the  dark,  and  then  to 
find  that  his  monument  to-day  is  a  light 
house,  with  revolving  lamps  and  electric  ap 
pliances,  and  with  ocean  tramps  and  bridges 
and  men-of-war  around  it.  We  have  im 
proved  in  our  mechanism  since  then,"  he 
said,  with  an  air,  "  but  I  am  afraid  the  men 
of  to-day  don't  do  that  sort  of  thing  for  the 
women  of  to-day." 

"Then  it  is  the  men  who  have  deterio 
rated,"  said  one  of  the  equerries,  bowing 
to  Miss  Morris ;  "  it  is  certainly  not  the 
women." 

The  two  Americans  looked  at  Miss  Mor 
ris  to  see  how  she  received  this,  but  she  smiled 
good-naturedly. 

"I  know  a  man  who  did  more  than  that 
for  a  woman,"  said  Carlton,  innocently.  "  He 
crossed  an  ocean  and  several  countries  to 
meet  her,  and  he  hasn't  met  her  yet." 

Miss  Morris  looked  at  him  and  laughed, 


go 

in  the  safety  that  no  one  understood  him 
but  herself. 

"  But  he  ran  no  danger,"  she  answered. 

"He  didn't,  didn't  he?"  said  Carlton, 
looking  at  her  closely  and  laughing.  "  I 
think  he  was  in  very  great  danger  all  the 
time." 

"Shocking!"  said  Miss  Morris,  reproving 
ly;  "and  in  her  very  presence,  too."  She 
knitted  her  brows  and  frowned  at  him.  "  I 
really  believe  if  you  were  in  prison  you  would 
make  pretty  speeches  to  the  jailer's  daugh 
ter." 

"  Yes,"  said  Carlton,  boldly,  "  or  even  to  a 
woman  who  was  a  prisoner  herself." 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  mean,"  she  said, 
turning  away  from  him  to  the  others.  "  How 
far  was  it  that  Leander  swam  ?"  she  asked. 

The  English  captain  pointed  out  two  spots 
on  either  bank,  and  said  that  the  shores  of 
Abydos  were  a  little  over  that  distance  apart. 

"  As  far  as  that  ?"  said  Miss  Morris.    "  How 


91 

much  he  must  have  cared  for  her!"  She 
turned  to  Carlton  for  an  answer. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said.  He  was 
measuring  the  distance  between  the  two 
points  with  his  eyes. 

"  I  said  how  much  he  must  have  cared  for 
her !  You  wouldn't  swim  that  far  for  a  girl." 

"  For  a  girl !"  laughed  Carlton,  quickly. 
"  I  was  just  thinking  I  would  do  it  for  fifty 
dollars." 

The  English  captain  gave  a  hasty  glance 
at  the  distance  he  had  pointed  out,  and  then 
turned  to  Carlton.  "  I'll  take  you,"  he  said, 
seriously.  "  I'll  bet  you  twenty  pounds  you 
can't  do  it."  There  was  an  easy  laugh  at 
Carlton's  expense,  but  he  only  shook  his 
head  and  smiled. 

"  Leave  him  alone,  captain,"  said  the  Amer 
ican  Secretary.  "  It  seems  to  me  I  remem 
ber  a  story  of  Mr.  Carlton's  swimming  out 
from  Navesink  to  meet  an  ocean  liner.  It 
was  about  three  miles,  and  the  ocean  was 


92 

rather  rough,  and  when  they  slowed  up  he 
asked  them  if  it  was  raining  in  London  when 
they  left.  They  thought  he  was  mad." 

"Is  that  true,  Carlton?"  asked  the  Eng 
lishman. 

"  Something  like  it,"  said  the  American, 
"  except  that  I  didn't  ask  them  if  it  was  rain 
ing  in  London.  I  asked  them  for  a  drink, 
and  it  was  they  who  were  mad.  They  thought 
I  was  drowning,  and  slowed  up  to  lower  a 
boat,  and  when  they  found  out  I  was  just 
swimming  around  they  were  naturally  an 
gry-" 

"  Well,  I'm  glad  you  didn't  bet  with  me," 
said  the  captain,  with  a  relieved  laugh. 

That  evening,  as  the  Englishman  was  leav 
ing  the  smoking-room,  and  after  he  had  bid 
den  Carlton  good-night,  he  turned  back  and 
said :  "  I  didn't  like  to  ask  you  before  those 
men  this  morning,  but  there  was  something 
about  your  swimming  adventure  I  wanted 
to  know:  Did  you  get  that  drink?" 


93 

"  I  did,"  said  Carlton— "  in  a  bottle.  They 
nearly  broke  my  shoulder." 

As  Carlton  came  into  the  breakfast-room 
on  the  morning  of  the  day  he  was  to  meet 
the  Princess  Aline  at  dinner,  Miss  Morris 
was  there  alone,  and  he  sat  down  at  the 
same  table,  opposite  to  her.  She  looked  at 
him  critically,  and  smiled  with  evident  amuse 
ment. 

" '  To-day,'  "  she  quoted,  solemnly,  "  '  the 
birthday  of  my  life  has  come.' " 

Carlton  poured  out  his  coffee,  with  a  shake 
of  his  head,  and  frowned.  "  Oh,  you  can 
laugh,"  he  said,  "  but  I  didn't  sleep  at  all  last 
night.  I  lay  awake  making  speeches  to  her. 
I  know  they  are  going  to  put  me  between 
the  wrong  sisters,"  he  complained,  "  or  next 
to  one  of  those  old  ladies-in-waiting,  or  what 
ever  they  are." 

"  How  are  you  going  to  begin  ?"  said  Miss 
Morris.  "  Will  you  tell  her  you  have  fol 
lowed  her  from  London — or  from  New  York, 


94 

rather — that  you  are  young  Lochinvar,  who 
came  out  of  the  West,  and — " 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Carlton,  meditatively, 
"  just  how  I  shall  begin ;  but  I  know  the  cur 
tain  is  going  to  rise  promptly  at  eight  o'clock 
— about  the  time  the  soup  comes  on,  I  think. 
I  don't  see  how  she  can  help  but  be  impressed 
a  little  bit.  It  isn't  every  day  a  man  hurries 
around  the  globe  on  account  of  a  girl's  pho 
tograph  ;  and  she  is  beautiful,  isn't  she?" 

Miss  Morris  nodded  her  head  encourag 
ingly. 

"  Do  you  know,  sometimes,"  said  Carlton, 
glancing  over  his  shoulders  to  see  if  the  wait 
ers  were  out  of  hearing,  "  I  fancy  she  has  no 
ticed  me.  Once  or  twice  I  have  turned  my 
head  in  her  direction  without  meaning  to, 
and  found  her  looking  —  well,  looking  my 
way,  at  least.  Don't  you  think  that  is  a 
good  sign  ?"  he  asked,  eagerly. 

"  It  depends  on  what  you  call  a  '  good 
sign, '  "  said  Miss  Morris,  judicially.  "  It  is 


95 

a  sign  you're  good  to  look  at,  if  that's  what 
you  want.  But  you  probably  know  that  al 
ready,  and  it's  nothing  to  your  credit.  It 
certainly  isn't  a  sign  that  a  person  cares  for 
you  because  she  prefers  to  look  at  your  pro 
file  rather  than  at  what  the  dragomans  are 
trying  to  show  her." 

Carlton  drew  himself  up  stiffly.  "  If  you 
knew  your  Alice  better,"  he  said,  with  sever 
ity,  "  you  would  understand  that  it  is  not  po 
lite  to  make  personal  remarks.  I  ask  you, 
as  my  confidante,  if  you  think  she  has  no 
ticed  me,  and  you  make  fun  of  my  looks ! 
That's  not  the  part  of  a  confidante." 

"  Noticed  you !"  laughed  Miss  Morris, 
scornfully.  "  How  could  she  help  it  ?  You 
are  always  in  the  way.  You  are  at  the  door 
whenever  they  go  out  or  come  in,  and  when 
we  are  visiting  mosques  and  palaces  you  are 
invariably  looking  at  her  instead  of  the  tombs 
and  things,  with  a  wistful  far-away  look,  as 
though  you  saw  a  vision.  The  first  time 


96 

you  did  it,  after  you  had  turned  away  I  saw 
her  feel  to  see  if  her  hair  was  all  right.  You 
quite  embarrassed  her." 

"  I  didn't— I  don't !"  stammered  Carlton, 
indignantly.  "  I  wouldn't  be  so  rude.  Oh, 
I  see  I'll  have  to  get  another  confidante ; 
you  are  most  unsympathetic  and  un 
kind." 

But  Miss  Morris  showed  her  sympathy 
later  in  the  day,  when  Carlton  needed  it 
sorely ;  for  the  dinner  towards  which  he  had 
looked  with  such  pleasurable  anticipations 
and  loverlike  misgivings  did  not  take  place. 
The  Sultan,  so  the  equerry  informed  him, 
had,  with  Oriental  unexpectedness,  invited 
the  Duke  to  dine  that  night  at  the  Palace, 
and  the  Duke,  much  to  his  expressed  regret, 
had  been  forced  to  accept  what  was  in  the 
nature  of  a  command.  He  sent  word  by  his 
equerry,  however,  that  the  dinner  to  Mr. 
Carlton  was  only  a  pleasure  deferred,  and 
that  at  Athens,  where  he  understood  Carlton 


97 

was  also  going,  he  hoped  to  have  the  pleas 
ure  of  entertaining  him  and  making  him 
known  to  his  sisters. 

"  He  is  a  selfish  young  egoist,"  said  Carlton 
to  Mrs.  Downs.  "  As  if  I  cared  whether  he 
was  at  the  dinner  or  not !  Why  couldn't  he 
have  fixed  it  so  I  might  have  dined  with  his 
sisters  alone  ?  We  would  never  have  missed 
him.  I'll  never  meet  her  now.  I  know  it ; 
I  feel  it.  Fate  is  against  me.  Now  I  will 
have  to  follow  them  on  to  Athens,  and  some 
thing  will  turn  up  there  to  keep  me  away 
from  her.  You'll  see ;  you'll  see.  I  wonder 
where  they  go  from  Athens  ?" 

The  Hohenwalds  departed  the  next  morn 
ing,  and  as  their  party  had  engaged  all  the 
state-rooms  in  the  little  Italian  steamer,  Carl- 
ton  was  forced  to  wait  over  for  the  next.  He 
was  very  gloomy  over  his  disappointment, 
and  Miss  Morris  did  her  best  to  amuse  him. 
She  and  her  aunt  were  never  idle  now,  and 
spent  the  last  few  days  of  their  stay  in  Con' 


98 

stantinople  in  the  bazars  or  in  excursions  up 
and  down  the  river. 

"These  are  my  last  days  of  freedom," 
Miss  Morris  said  to  him  once,  "  and  I  mean 
to  make  the  most  of  them.  After  this  there 
will  be  no  more  travelling  for  me.  And  I 
love  it  so !"  she  added,  wistfully. 

Carlton  made  no  comment,  but  he  felt  a 
certain  contemptuous  pity  for  the  young 
man  in  America  who  had  required  such  a 
sacrifice.  "  She  is  too  nice  a  girl  to  let  him 
know  she  is  making  a  sacrifice,"  he  thought, 
"or  giving  up  anything  for  him,  but  she 
won't  forget  it."  And  Carlton  again  com 
mended  himself  for  not  having  asked  any 
woman  to  make  any  sacrifices  for  him. 

They  left  Constantinople  for  Athens  one 
moonlight  night,  three  days  after  the  Hohen- 
walds  had  taken  their  departure,  and  as  the 
evening  and  the  air  were  warm,  they  re 
mained  upon  the  upper  deck  until  the  boat 
had  entered  the  Dardanelles.  There  were 


99 

few  passengers,  and  Mrs.  Downs  went  below 
early,  leaving  Miss  Morris  and  Carlton  hang 
ing  over  the  rail,  and  looking  down  upon  a 
band  of  Hungarian  gypsies,  who  were  play 
ing  the  weird  music  of  their  country  on  the 
deck  beneath  them.  The  low  receding  hills 
lay  close  on  either  hand,  and  ran  back  so 
sharply  from  the  narrow  waterway  that  they 
seemed  to  shut  in  the  boat  from  the  world 
beyond.  The  moonlight  showed  a  little 
mud  fort  or  a  thatched  cottage  on  the  bank 
fantastically,  as  through  a  mist,  and  from 
time  to  time  as  they  sped  forward  they  saw 
the  camp-fire  of  a  sentry,  and  his  shadow  as 
he  passed  between  it  and  them,  or  stopped 
to  cover  it  with  wood.  The  night  was  so 
still  that  they  could  hear  the  waves  in  the 
steamer's  wake  washing  up  over  the  stones 
on  either  shore,  and  the  muffled  beat  of  the 
engines  echoed  back  from  either  side  of  the 
valley  through  which  they  passed.  There 
was  a  great  lantern  hanging  midway  from 


the  mast,  and  shining  down  upon  the  lower 
deck.  It  showed  a  group  of  Greeks,  Turks, 
and  Armenians,  in  strange  costumes,  sleep 
ing,  huddled  together  in  picturesque  con 
fusion  over  the  bare  boards,  or  wide-awake 
and  voluble,  smoking  and  chatting  together 
in  happy  company.  The  music  of  the 
tizanes  rose  in  notes  of  passionate  ecstasy 
and  sharp,  unexpected  bursts  of  melody.  It 
ceased  and  began  again,  as  though  the  musi 
cians  were  feeling  their  way,  and  then  burst 
out  once  more  into  shrill  defiance.  It  stirred 
Carlton  with  a  strange  turbulent  unrest. 
From  the  banks  the  night  wind  brought  soft 
odors  of  fresh  earth  and  of  heavy  foliage. 

"  The  music  of  different  countries,"  Carl- 
ton  said  at  last,  "  means  many  different 
things.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  the  music 
of  Hungary  is  the  music  of  love." 

Miss  Morris  crossed  her  arms  comfort 
ably  on  the  rail,  and  he  heard  her  laugh 
softly.  "  Oh  no,  it  is  not,"  she  said,  undis- 


101 


turbed.  "It  is  a  passionate,  gusty,  heady 
sort  of  love,  if  you  like,  but  it's  no  more  like 
the  real  thing  than  burgundy  is  like  clear, 
cold,  good  water.  It's  not  the  real  thing  at 
all." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  Carlton,  meekly. 
"  Of  course  I  don't  know  anything  about  it." 
He  had  been  waked  out  of  the  spell  which 
the  night  and  the  tizanes  had  placed  upon 
him  as  completely  as  though  some  one  had 
shaken  him  sharply  by  the  shoulder.  "  I 
bow,"  he  said,  "  to  your  superior  knowledge. 
I  know  nothing  about  it." 

"  No ;  you  are  quite  right.  I  don't  be 
lieve  you  do  know  anything  about  it,"  said 
the  girl,  "  or  you  wouldn't  have  made  such  a 
comparison." 

"Do  you  know,  Miss  Morris,"  said  Carl- 
ton,  seriously,  "that  I  believe  I'm  not  able 
to  care  for  a  woman  as  other  men  do — at 
least  as  some  men  do;  it's  just  lacking  in 
me,  and  always  will  be  lacking.  It's  like  an 


IO2 


ear  for  music;  if  you  haven't  got  it,  if  it 
isn't  born  in  you,  you'll  never  have  it.  It's 
not  a  thing  you  can  cultivate,  and  I  feel  that 
it's  not  only  a  misfortune,  but  a  fault.  Now 
I  honestly  believe  that  I  care  more  for  the 
Princess  Aline,  whom  I  have  never  met, 
than  many  other  men  could  care  for  her  if 
they  knew  her  well;  but  what  they  feel 
would  last,  and  I  have  doubts  from  past  ex 
perience  that  what  I  feel  would.  I  don't 
doubt  it  while  it  exists,  but  it  never  does 
exist  long,  and  so  I  am  afraid  it  is  going  to 
be  with  me  to  the  end  of  the  chapter."  He 
paused  for  a  moment,  but  the  girl  did  not 
answer.  "  I  am  speaking  in  earnest  now," 
he  added,  with  a  rueful  laugh. 

"  I  see  you  are,"  she  replied,  briefly.  She 
seemed  to  be  considering  his  condition  as  he 
had  described  it  to  her,  and  he  did  not  inter 
rupt  her.  From  below  them  came  the  notes 
of  the  waltz  the  gypsies  played.  It  was  full 
of  the  undercurrent  of  sadness  that  a  waltz 


103 

should  have,  and  filled  out  what  Carlton  said 
as  the  music  from  the  orchestra  in  a  theatre 
heightens  the  effect  without  interrupting 
the  words  of  the  actor  on  the  stage. 

"  It  is  strange,"  said  Miss  Morris.  "  I 
should  have  thought  you  were  a  man  who 
would  care  very  much  and  in  just  the  right 
way.  But  I  don't  believe  really — I'm  sorry, 
but  I  don't  believe  you  do  know  what  love 
means  at  all." 

"  Oh,  it  isn't  as  bad  as  that,"  said  Carlton. 
"  I  think  I  know  what  it  is,  and  what  it 
means  to  other  people,  but  I  can't  feel  it 
myself.  The  best  idea  I  ever  got  of  it — the 
thing  that  made  it  clear  to  me — was  a  line 
in  a  play.  It  seemed  to  express  it  better 
than  any  of  the  love-poems  I  ever  read.  It 
was  in  Shenandoah" 

Miss  Morris  laughed. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  Carlton. 

"  I  beg  yours,"  she  said.  "  It  was  only 
the  incongruity  that  struck  me.  It  seemed 


104 

so  odd  to  be  quoting  Shenandoah  here  in  the 
Dardanelles,  with  these  queer  people  below 
us  and  ancient  Troy  on  one  hand — it  took 
me  by  surprise,  that's  all.  Please  go  on. 
What  was  it  impressed  you  ?" 

"  Well,  the  hero  in  the  play,"  said  Carlton, 
"  is  an  officer  in  the  Northern  army,  and  he 
is  lying  wounded  in  a  house  near  the  Shen 
andoah  Valley.  The  girl  he  loves  lives  in 
this  house,  and  is  nursing  him ;  but  she 
doesn't  love  him,  because  she  sympathizes 
with  the  South.  At  least  she  says  she 
doesn't  love  him.  Both  armies  are  forming 
in  the  valley  below  to  begin  the  battle,  and 
he  sees  his  own  regiment  hurrying  past  to 
join  them.  So  he  gets  up  and  staggers  out 
on  the  stage,  which  is  set  to  show  the  yard 
in  front  of  the  farm-house,  and  he  calls  for 
his  horse  to  follow  his  men.  Then  the  girl 
runs  out  and  begs  him  not  to  go ;  and  he 
asks  why,  what  does  it  matter  to  her 
whether  he  goes  or  not?  And  she  says, 


105 

'But  I  cannot  let  you  go;  you  may  be 
killed.'  And  he  says  again,  'What  is  that 
to  you  ?'  And  she  says :  '  It  is  everything 
to  me.  I  love  you.'  And  he  makes  a  grab 
at  her  with  his  wounded  arm,  and  at  that 
instant  both  armies  open  fire  in  the  valley 
below,  and  the  whole  earth  and  sky  seem  to 
open  and  shut,  and  the  house  rocks.  The 
girl  rushes  at  him  and  crowds  up  against  his 
breast,  and  cries :  '  What  is  that  ?  Oh,  what 
is  that  ?'  and  he  holds  her  tight  to  him  and 
laughs,  and  says:  '  That?  That's  only  a 
battle — you  love  me.'  " 

Miss  Morris  looked  steadfastly  over  the 
side  of  the  boat  at  the  waters  rushing  by  be 
neath,  smiling  to  herself.  Then  she  turned 
her  face  towards  Carlton,  and  nodded  her 
head  at  him.  "  I  think,"  she  said,  dryly, 
"  that  you  have  a  fair  idea  of  what  it  means ; 
a  rough  working-plan  at  least — enough  to 
begin  on." 

"I  said  that  I   knew  what   it  meant  to 


io6 

others.  I  am  complaining  that  I  cannot  feel 
it  myself." 

"  That  will  come  in  time,  no  doubt,"  she 
said,  encouragingly,  with  the  air  of  a  con 
noisseur;  "and  let  me  tell  you,"  she  added, 
"that  it  will  be  all  the  better  for  the 
woman  that  you  have  doubted  yourself  so 
long." 

"  You  think  so  ?"  said  Carlton,  eagerly. 

Miss  Morris  laughed  at  his  earnestness, 
and  left  him  to  go  below  to  ask  her  aunt 
to  join  them,  but  Mrs.  Downs  preferred  to 
read  in  the  saloon,  and  Miss  Morris  returned 
alone.  She  had  taken  off  her  Eton  jack 
et  and  pulled  on  a  heavy  blue  football 
sweater,  and  over  this  a  reefer.  The  jersey 
clung  to  her  and  showed  the  lines  of  her  fig 
ure,  and  emphasized  the  freedom  and  grace 
with  which  she  made  every  movement.  She 
looked,  as  she  walked  at  his  side  with  her 
hands  in  the  pockets  of  her  coat  and  with 
a  flat  sailor  hat  on  her  head,  like  a  tall,  hand- 


107 

some  boy ;  but  when  they  stopped  and  stood 
where  the  light  fell  full  on  her  hair  and 
the  exquisite  coloring  of  her  skin,  Carlton 
thought  her  face  had  never  seemed  so  del 
icate  or  fair  as  it  did  then,  rising  from  the 
collar  of  the  rough  jersey,  and  contrasted 
with  the  hat  and  coat  of  a  man's  attire. 
They  paced  the  deck  for  an  hour  later,  until 
every  one  else  had  left  it,  and  at  midnight 
were  still  loath  to  give  up  the  beautiful 
night  and  the  charm  of  their  strange  sur 
roundings.  There  were  long  silent  places  in 
their  talk,  during  which  Carlton  tramped 
beside  her  with  his  head  half  turned,  looking 
at  her  and  noting  with  an  artist's  eye  the 
free  light  step,  the  erect  carriage,  and  the 
unconscious  beauty  of  her  face.  The  cap 
tain  of  the  steamer  joined  them  after  mid- 
night,  and  falling  into  step,  pointed  out  to 
Miss  Morris  where  great  cities  had  stood, 
where  others  lay  buried,  and  where  beyond 
the  hills  were  the  almost  inaccessible  monas- 


io8 

teries  of  the  Greek  Church.  The  moonlight 
turned  the  banks  into  shadowy  substances, 
in  which  the  ghosts  of  former  days  seemed 
to  make  a  part;  and  spurred  by  the  young 
girl's  interest,  the  Italian,  to  entertain  her, 
called  up  all  the  legends  of  mythology  and 
the  stories  of  Roman  explorers  and  Turkish 
conquerors. 

"  I  turn  in  now,"  he  said,  after  Miss  Morris 
had  left  them.  "A  most  charming  young 
lady.  Is  it  not  so?"  he  added,  waving  his 
cigarette  in  a  gesture  which  expressed  the 
ineffectiveness  of  the  adjective. 

"  Yes,  very,"  said  Carlton.  "  Good-night, 
sir." 

He  turned,  and  leaned  with  both  elbows 
on  the  rail,  and  looked  out  at  the  misty 
banks,  puffing  at  his  cigar.  Then  he 
dropped  it  hissing  into  the  water,  and,  sti 
fling  a  yawn,  looked  up  and  down  the 
length  of  the  deserted  deck.  It  seemed 
particularly  bare  and  empty. 


"  What  a  pity  she's  engaged !"  Carlton 
said.  "  She  loses  so  much  by  it." 

They  steamed  slowly  into  the  harbor  of 
the  Piraeus  at  an  early  hour  the  next  morn 
ing,  with  a  flotilla  of  small  boats  filled  with 
shrieking  porters  and  hotel -runners  at  the 
sides.  These  men  tossed  their  painters  to 
the  crew,  and  crawled  up  them  like  a  board 
ing  crew  of  pirates,  running  wildly  about 
the  deck,  and  laying  violent  hands  on  any 
piece  of  baggage  they  saw  unclaimed.  The 
passengers'  trunks  had  been  thrown  out  in 
a  heap  on  the  deck,  and  Nolan  and  Carlton 
were  clambering  over  them,  looking  for 
their  own  effects,  while  Miss  Morris  stood 
below,  as  far  out  of  the  confusion  as  she 
could  place  herself,  and  pointed  out  the 
different  pieces  that  belonged  to  her.  As 
she  stood  there  one  of  the  hotel-runners,  a 
burly,  greasy  Levantine  in  pursuit  of  a  pos 
sible  victim,  shouldered  her  intentionally 
and  roughly  out  of  the  way.  He  shoved 


her  so  sharply  that  she  lost  her  balance  and 
fell  back  against  the  rail.  Carlton  saw  what 
had  happened,  and  made  a  flying  leap  from 
the  top  of  the  pile  of  trunks,  landing  beside 
her,  and  in  time  to  seize  the  escaping  of 
fender  by  the  collar.  He  jerked  him  back 
off  his  feet. 

"  How  dare  you — "  he  began. 

But  he  did  not  finish.  He  felt  the  tips 
of  Miss  Morris's  fingers  laid  upon  his  shoul 
der,  and  her  voice  saying,  in  an  annoyed 
tone:  "Don't;  please  don't."  And,  to  his 
surprise,  his  fingers  lost  their  grip  on  the 
man's  shirt,  his  arms  dropped  at  his  side, 
and  his  blood  began  to  flow  calmly  again 
through  his  veins.  Carlton  was  aware  that 
he  had  a  very  quick  temper.  He  was  al 
ways  engaging  in  street  rows,  as  he  called 
them,  with  men  who  he  thought  had  im 
posed  on  him  or  on  some  one  else,  and 
though  he  was  always  ashamed  of  himself 
later,  his  temper  had  never  been  satisfied 


Ill 


without  a  blow  or  an  apology.  Women 
had  also  touched  him  before,  and  possibly 
with  a  greater  familiarity;  but  these  had 
stirred  him,  not  quieted  him ;  and  men  who 
had  laid  detaining  hands  on  him  had  had 
them  beaten  down  for  their  pains.  But 
this  girl  had  merely  touched  him  gently, 
and  he  had  been  made  helpless.  It  was 
most  perplexing ;  and  while  the  custom 
house  officials  were  passing  his  luggage,  he 
found  himself  rubbing  his  arm  curiously,  as 
though  it  were  numb,  and  looking  down  at 
it  with  an  amused  smile.  He  did  not  com 
ment  on  the  incident,  although  he  smiled 
at  the  recollection  of  his  prompt  obedience 
several  times  during  the  day.  But  as  he 
was  stepping  into  the  cab  to  drive  to  Ath 
ens,  he  saw  the  offending  ruffian  pass,  drip 
ping  with  water,  and  muttering  bitter 
curses.  When  he  saw  Carlton  he  disap 
peared  instantly  in  the  crowd.  Carlton 
stepped  over  to  where  Nolan  sat  beside  the 


112 

driver  on  the  box.  "  Nolan,"  he  said,  in  a 
low  voice,  "  isn't  that  the  fellow  who — " 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  Nolan,  touching  his  hat 
gravely.  "  He  was  pulling  a  valise  one 
way,  and  the  gentleman  that  owned  it,  sir, 
was  pulling  it  the  other,  and  the  gentleman 
let  go  sudden,  and  the  Italian  went  over 
backwards  off  the  pier." 

Carlton  smiled  grimly  with  secret  satis 
faction. 

"  Nolan,"  he  said,  "you're  not  telling  the 
truth.  You  did  it  yourself."  Nolan  touched 
his  cap  and  coughed  consciously.  There 
had  been  no  detaining  fingers  on  Nolan's 
arm. 


Ill 


"You  are  coming  now,  Miss  Morris," 
exclaimed  Carlton  from  the  front  of  the 
carriage  in  which  they  were  moving  along 
the  sunny  road  to  Athens,  "  into  a  land 
where  one  restores  his  lost  illusions.  Any 
body  who  wishes  to  get  back  his  belief  in 
beautiful  things  should  come  here  to  do  it, 
just  as  he  would  go  to  a  German  sanitarium 
to  build  up  his  nerves  or  his  appetite.  You 
have  only  to  drink  in  the  atmosphere  and 
you  are  cured.  I  know  no  better  antidote 
than  Athens  for  a  siege  of  cable -cars  and 
muddy  asphalt  pavements  and  a  course  of 
Robert  Elsmeres  and  the  Heavenly  Twins. 
Wait  until  you  see  the  statues  of  the  young 
athletes  in  the  Museum,"  he  cried,  enthu 
siastically,  "and  get  a  glimpse  of  the  blue 


H4 

sky  back  of  Mount  Hymettus,  and  the 
moonlight  some  evening  on  the  Acropolis, 
and  you'll  be  convinced  that  nothing  counts 
for  much  in  this  world  but  health  and 
straight  limbs,  and  tall  marble  pillars,  and 
eyes  trained  to  see  only  what  is  beautiful. 
Give  people  a  love  for  beauty  and  a  re 
spect  for  health,  Miss  Morris,  and  the  re 
sult  is  going  to  be,  what  they  once  had 
here,  the  best  art  and  the  greatest  writers 
and  satirists  and  poets.  The  same  audience 
that  applauded  Euripides  and  Sophocles  in 
the  open  theatre  used  to  cross  the  road 
the  same  day  to  applaud  the  athletes  who 
ran  naked  in  the  Olympian  games,  and 
gave  them  as  great  honor.  I  came  here 
once  on  a  walking  tour  with  a  chap  who 
wasn't  making  as  much  of  himself  as  he 
should  have  done,  and  he  went  away  a 
changed  man,  and  became  a  personage  in 
the  world,  and  you  would  never  guess  what 
it  was  that  did  it.  He  saw  a  statue  of  one 


"5 

of  the  Greek  gods  in  the  Museum  which 
showed  certain  muscles  that  he  couldn't 
find  in  his  own  body,  and  he  told  me  he 
was  going  to  train  down  until  they  did 
show ;  and  he  stopped  drinking  and  loafing 
to  do  it,  and  took  to  exercising  and  work 
ing;  and  by  the  time  the  muscles  showed 
out  clear  and  strong  he  was  so  keen  over 
life  that  he  wanted  to  make  the  most  of  it, 
and,  as  I  said,  he  has  done  it.  That's  what 
a  respect  for  his  own  body  did  for  him." 

The  carriage  stopped  at  the  hotel  on 
one  side  of  the  public  square  of  Athens, 
with  the  palace  and  its  gardens  blocking 
one  end,  and  yellow  houses  with  red  roofs, 
and  gay  awnings  over  the  cafes,  surround 
ing  it.  It  was  a  bright  sunny  day,  and  the 
city  was  clean  and  cool  and  pretty. 

"Breakfast?"  exclaimed  Miss  Morris,  in 
answer  to  Carlton's  inquiry;  "yes,  I  sup 
pose  so,  but  I  won't  feel  safe  until  I  have 
my  feet  on  that  rock."  She  was  standing 


n6 

on  the  steps  of  the  hotel,  looking  up  with 
expectant,  eager  eyes  at  the  great  Acrop 
olis  above  the  city. 

"  It  has  been  there  for  a  long  time  now," 
suggested  Carlton,  "and  I  think  you  can 
risk  its  being  there  for  a  half-hour  longer." 

"  Well,"  she  said,  reluctantly,  "  but  I  don't 
wish  to  lose  this  chance.  There  might  be 
an  earthquake,  for  instance." 

"We  are  likely  to  see  them  this  morn 
ing,"  said  Carlton,  as  he  left  the  hotel  with 
the  ladies  and  drove  towards  the  Acropolis. 
"Nolan  has  been  interviewing  the  English 
maid,  and  she  tells  him  they  spend  the 
greater  part  of  their  time  up  there  on  the 
rock.  They  are  living  very  simply  here,  as 
they  did  in  Paris ;  that  is,  for  the  present. 
On  Wednesday  the  King  gives  a  dinner 
and  a  reception  in  their  honor." 

"  When  does  your  dinner  come  off  ?" 
asked  Miss  Morris. 


H7 

"  Never,"  said  Carlton,  grimly. 

"  One  of  the  reasons  why  I  like  to  come 
back  to  Athens  so  much,"  said  Mrs.  Downs, 
"  is  because  there  are  so  few  other  tourists 
here  to  spoil  the  local  color  for  you,  and 
there  are  almost  as  few  guides  as  tourists, 
so  that  you  can  wander  around  undisturbed 
and  discover  things  for  yourself.  They 
don't  label  every  fallen  column,  and  place 
fences  around  the  temples.  They  seem  to 
put  you  on  your  good  behavior.  Then  I 
always  like  to  go  to  a  place  where  you  are 
as  much  of  a  curiosity  to  the  people  as 
they  are  to  you.  It  seems  to  excuse  your 
staring  about  you." 

"A  curiosity!"  exclaimed  Carlton;  "I 
should  say  so !  The  last  time  I  was  here 
I  tried  to  wear  a  pair  of  knickerbockers 
around  the  city,  and  the  people  stared  so 
that  I  had  to  go  back  to  the  hotel  and 
change  them.  I  shouldn't  have  minded  it 
so  much  in  any  other  country,  but  J 


n8 

thought  men  who  wore  Jaeger  undercloth 
ing  and  women's  petticoats  for  a  national 
costume  might  have  excused  so  slight  an 
eccentricity  as  knickerbockers.  They  had 
no  right  to  throw  the  first  stone." 

The  rock  upon  which  the  temples  of  the 
Acropolis  are  built  is  more  of  a  hill  than  a 
rock.  It  is  much  steeper  upon  one  side 
than  the  other,  with  a  sheer  fall  a  hundred 
yards  broad ;  on  the  opposite  side  there 
are  the  rooms  of  the  Hospital  of  Aesculapius 
and  the  theatres  of  Dionysus  and  H  erodes 
Atticus.  The  top  of  the  rock  holds  the 
Parthenon  and  the  other  smaller  temples, 
or  what  yet  remains  of  them,  and  its  sur 
face  is  littered  with  broken  marble  and 
stones  and  pieces  of  rock.  The  top  is  so 
closely  built  over  that  the  few  tourists  who 
visit  it  can  imagine  themselves  its  sole  oc 
cupants  for  a  half-hour  at  a  time.  When 
Carlton  and  his  friends  arrived,  the  place 
appeared  quite  deserted.  They  left  the  car- 


ng 

riage  at  the  base  of  the  rock,  and  climbed 
up  to  the  entrance  on  foot. 

"  Now,  before  I  go  on  to  the  Parthenon," 
said  Miss  Morris,  "  I  want  to  walk  around 
the  sides,  and  see  what  is  there.  I  shall 
begin  with  that  theatre  to  the  left,  and  I 
warn  you  that  I  mean  to  take  my  time 
about  it.  So  you  people  who  have  been 
here  before  can  run  along  by  yourselves, 
but  I  mean  to  enjoy  it  leisurely.  I  am 
safe  by  myself  here,  am  I  not?"  she 
asked. 

"  As  safe  as  though  you  were  in  the  Me 
tropolitan  Museum,"  said  Carlton,  as  he 
and  Mrs.  Downs  followed  Miss  Morris 
along  the  side  of  the  hill  towards  the  ru 
ined  theatre  of  Herodes,  and-  stood  at  its 
top,  looking  down  into  the  basin  below. 
From  their  feet  ran  a  great  semicircle  of 
marble  seats,  descending  tier  below  tier  to 
a  marble  pavement,  and  facing  a  great 
ruined  wall  of  pillars  and  arches  which  in 


120 


the  past  had  formed  the  background  for 
the  actors.  From  the  height  on  which 
they  stood  above  the  city  they  could  see 
the  green  country  stretching  out  for  miles 
on  every  side  and  swimming  in  the  warm 
sunlight,  the  dark  groves  of  myrtle  on  the 
hills,  the  silver  ribbon  of  the  inland  water, 
and  the  dark  blue  ^Egean  Sea.  The  bleat 
ing  of  sheep  and  the  tinkling  of  the  bells 
came  up  to  them  from  the  pastures  below, 
and  they  imagined  they  could  hear  the 
shepherds  piping  to  their  flocks  from  one 
little  hill -top  to  another. 

"The  country  is  not  much  changed," 
said  Carlton.  "  And  when  you  stand  where 
we  are  now,  you  can  imagine  that  you  see 
the  procession  winding  its  way  over  the 
road  to  the  Eleusinian  Mysteries,  with  the 
gilded  chariots,  and  the  children  carrying 
garlands,  and  the  priestesses  leading  the 
bulls  for  the  sacrifice." 

"What    can    we    imagine    is    going    on 


here?"  said  Miss  Morris,  pointing  with  her 
parasol  to  the  theatre  below. 

"  Oh,  this  is  much  later,"  said  Carlton. 
"This  was  built  by  the  Romans.  They 
used  to  act  and  to  hold  their  public  meet 
ings  here.  This  corresponds  to  the  top 
row  of  our  gallery,  and  you  can  imagine 
that  you  are  looking  down  on  the  bent 
backs  of  hundreds  of  bald-headed  men  in 
white  robes,  listening  to  the  speakers  strut 
ting  about  below  there." 

"  I  wonder  how  much  they  could  hear 
from  this  height?"  said  Mrs.  Downs. 

"Well,  they  had  that  big  wall  for  a 
sounding-board,  and  the  air  is  so  soft 
here  that  their  voices  should  have  carried 
easily,  and  I  believe  they  wore  masks  with 
mouth  -  pieces,  that  conveyed  the  sound 
like  a  fireman's  trumpet.  If  you  like,  I 
will  run  down  there  and  call  up  to  you, 
and  you  can  hear  how  it  sounded.  I  will 
speak  in  my  natural  voice  first,  and  if 


that  doesn't  reach  you,  wave  your  parasol, 
and  I  will  try  it  a  little  louder." 

"Oh,  do!"  said  Miss  Morris.  "It  will 
be  very  good  of  you.  I  should  like  to 
hear  a  real  speech  in  the  theatre  of  He- 
rodes,"  she  said,  as  she  seated  herself  on 
the  edge  of  the  marble  crater. 

"  I'll  have  to  speak  in  English,"  said 
Carlton,  as  he  disappeared ;  "  my  Greek 
isn't  good  enough  to  carry  that  far." 

Mrs.  Downs  seated  herself  beside  her 
niece,  and  Carlton  began  scrambling  down 
the  side  of  the  amphitheatre.  The  marble 
benches  were  broken  in  parts,  and  where 
they  were  perfect  were  covered  with  a  fine 
layer  of  moss  as  smooth  and  soft  as  green 
velvet,  so  that  Carlton,  when  he  was  not  la 
boriously  feeling  for  his  next  foothold  with 
the  toe  of  his  boot,  was  engaged  in  picking 
spring  flowers  from  the  beds  of  moss  and 
sticking  them,  for  safe-keeping,  in  his  but 
ton-hole.  He  was  several  minutes  in  making 


123 

the  descent,  and  so  busily  occupied  in  doing 
it  that  he  did  not  look  up  until  he  had  reached 
the  level  of  the  ground,  and  jumped  light 
ly  from  the  first  row  of  seats  to  the  stage, 
covered  with  moss,  which  lay  like  a  heavy 
rug  over  the  marble  pavement.  When  he 
did  look  up  he  saw  a  tableau  that  made  his 
heart,  which  was  beating  quickly  from  the  ex 
ertion  of  the  descent,  stand  still  with  con 
sternation.  The  Hohenwalds  had,  in  his 
short  absence,  descended  from  the  entrance 
of  the  Acropolis,  and  had  stopped  on  their 
way  to  the  road  below  to  look  into  the  cool 
green  and  white  basin  of  the  theatre.  At 
the  moment  Carlton  looked  up  the  Duke  was 
standing  in  front  of  Mrs.  Downs  and  Miss 
Morris,  and  all  of  the  men  had  their  hats  off. 
Then,  in  pantomime,  and  silhouetted  against 
the  blue  sky  behind  them,  Carlton  saw  the 
Princesses  advance  beside  their  brother,  and 
Mrs.  Downs  and  her  niece  courtesied  three 
times,  and  then  the  whole  party  faced  about 


124 

in  a  line  and  looked  down  at  him.  The  mean* 
ing  of  the  tableau  was  only  too  plain. 

"  Good  heavens !"  gasped  Carlton.  "  Ev 
erybody's  getting  introduced  to  everybody 
else,  and  I've  missed  the  whole  thing!  If 
they  think  I'm  going  to  stay  down  here  and 
amuse  them,  and  miss  all  the  fun  myself, 
they  are  greatly  mistaken."  He  made  a 
mad  rush  for  the  front  first  row  of  seats ; 
but  there  was  a  cry  of  remonstrance  from 
above,  and,  looking  up,  he  saw  all  of  the 
men  waving  him  back. 

"  Speech !"  cried  the  young  English  Cap 
tain,  applauding  loudly,  as  though  welcom 
ing  an  actor  on  his  first  entrance.  "  Hats 
off !"  he  cried.  "  Down  in  front !  Speech !" 

"  Confound  that  ass !"  said  Carlton,  drop 
ping  back  to  the  marble  pavement  again, 
and  gazing  impotently  up  at  the  row  of  fig 
ures  outlined  against  the  sky.  "  I  must 
look  like  a  bear  in  the  bear-pit  at  the  Zoo," 
he  growled.  "  They'll  be  throwing  buns  to 


125 

me  next."  He  could  see  the  two  elder  sis- 
ters  talking  to  Mrs.  Downs,  who  was  evi 
dently  explaining  his  purpose  in  going  down 
to  the  stage  of  the  theatre,  and  he  could  see 
the  Princess  Aline  bending  forward,  with 
both  hands  on  her  parasol,  and  smiling. 
The  captain  made  a  trumpet  of  his  hands, 
and  asked  why  he  didn't  begin. 

"  Hello !  how  are  you  ?"  Carlton  called 
back,  waving  his  hat  at  him  in  some  embar 
rassment.  "  I  wonder  if  I  look  as  much  like 
a  fool  as  I  feel  ?"  he  muttered. 

"  What  did  you  say  ?  We  can't  hear  you," 
answered  the  captain. 

"  Louder !  louder !"  called  the  equerries. 
Carlton  swore  at  them  under  his  breath,  and 
turned  and  gazed  round  the  hole  in  which 
he  was  penned  in  order  to  make  them  be 
lieve  that  he  had  given  up  the  idea  of  mak 
ing  a  speech,  or  had  ever  intended  doing  so. 
He  tried  to  think  of  something  clever  to 
shout  back  at  them,  and  rejected  "Ye  men 


126 

of  Athens"  as  being  too  flippant,  and 
"  Friends,  Countrymen,  Romans,"  as  requir 
ing  too  much  effort.  When  he  looked  up 
again  the  Hohenwalds  were  moving  on  their 
way,  and  as  he  started  once  more  to  scale 
the  side  of  the  theatre  the  Duke  waved  his 
hand  at  him  in  farewell,  and  gave  another 
hand  to  his  sisters,  who  disappeared  with 
him  behind  the  edge  of  the  upper  row  of 
seats.  Carlton  turned  at  once  and  dropped 
into  one  of  the  marble  chairs  and  bowed  his 
head.  When  he  did  reach  the  top  Miss 
Morris  held  out  a  sympathetic  hand  to  him 
and  shook  her  head  sadly,  but  he  could  see 
that  she  was  pressing  her  lips  tightly  togeth 
er  to  keep  from  smiling. 

"  Oh,  it's  all  very  funny  for  you,"  he  said, 
refusing  her  hand.  "  I  don't  believe  you 
are  in  love  with  anybody.  You  don't  know 
what  it  means." 

They  revisited  the  rock  on  the  next  day 
and  on  the  day  after,  and  then  left  Athens 


127 

for  an  inland  excursion  to  stay  overnight. 
Miss  Morris  returned  from  it  with  the  sense 
of  having  done  her  duty  once,  and  by  so  do 
ing  having  earned  the  right  to  act  as  she 
pleased  in  the  future.  What  she  best 
pleased  to  do  was  to  wander  about  over  the 
broad  top  of  the  Acropolis,  with  no  serious 
intent  of  studying  its  historical  values,  but 
rather,  as  she  explained  it,  for  the  simple 
satisfaction  of  feeling  that  she  was  there. 
She  liked  to  stand  on  the  edge  of  the  low 
wall  along  its  top  and  look  out  over  the 
picture  of  sea  and  plain  and  mountains  that 
lay  below  her.  The  sun  shone  brightly,  and 
the  wind  swept  by  them  as  though  they 
were  on  the  bridge  of  an  ocean  steamer,  and 
there  was  the  added  invigorating  sense  of 
pleasure  that  comes  to  us  when  we  stand  on 
a  great  height.  Carlton  was  sitting  at  her 
feet,  shielded  from  the  wind  by  a  fallen  col 
umn,  and  gazing  up  at  her  with  critical  ap 
proval.  , 


128 

"  You  look  like  a  sort  of  a  '  Winged  Vic 
tory*  up  there,"  he  said,  "with  the  wind 
blowing  your  skirts  about  and  your  hair 
coming  down." 

"  I  don't  remember  that  the  '  Winged 
Victory '  has  any  hair  to  blow  about,"  sug 
gested  Miss  Morris. 

"I'd  like  to  paint  you,"  continued  Carl- 
ton,  "just  as  you  are  standing  now,  only  I 
would  put  you  in  a  Greek  dress ;  and  you 
could  stand  a  Greek  dress  better  than  al 
most  any  one  I  know.  I  would  paint  you 
with  your  head  up  and  one  hand  shielding 
your  eyes,  and  the  other  pressed  against 
your  breast.  It  would  be  stunning."  He 
spoke  enthusiastically,  but  in  quite  an  im 
personal  tone,  as  though  he  were  discussing 
the  posing  of  a  model. 

Miss  Morris  jumped  down  from  the  low 
wall  on  which  she  had  been  standing,  and 
said,  simply,  "  Of  course  I  should  like  to 
have  you  paint  me  very  much." 


129 

Mrs.  Downs  looked  up  with  interest  to 
see  if  Mr.  Carlton  was  serious. 

"When  ?"  said  Carlton,  vaguely.  "  Oh,  I 
don't  know.  Of  course  this  is  entirely  too 
nice  to  last,  and, you  will  be  going  home 
soon,  and  then  when  I  do  get  back  to  the 
States  you  will — you  will  have  other  things 
to  do." 

"Yes,"  repeated  Miss  Morris,  "I  shall 
have  something  else  to  do  besides  gazing 
out  at  the  ^Egean  Sea."  She  raised  her 
head  and  looked  across  the  rock  for  a  mo 
ment  with  some  interest.  Her  eyes,  which 
had  grown  wistful,  lighted  again  with 
amusement.  "  Here  are  your  friends,"  she 
said,  smiling. 

"  No  !"  exclaimed  Carlton,  scrambling  to 
his  feet. 

"Yes,"  said  Miss  Morris.  "The  Duke 
has  seen  us,  and  is  coming  over  here." 

When  Carlton  had  gained  his  feet  and 
turned  to  look,  his  friends  had  separated  in 


different  directions,  and  were  strolling  about 
alone  or  in  pairs  among  the  great  columns 
of  the  Parthenon.  But  the  Duke  came  di 
rectly  towards  them,  and  seated  himself  on 
a  low  block  of  marble  in  front  of  the  two 
ladies.  After  a  word  or  two  about  the 
beauties  of  the  place,  he  asked  if  they  would 
go  to  the  reception  which  the  King  gave  to 
him  on  the  day  following.  They  answered 
that  they  should  like  to  come  very  much, 
and  the  Prince  expressed  his  satisfaction, 
and  said  that  he  would  see  that  the  cham 
berlain  sent  them  invitations.  "And  you, 
Mr.  Carlton,  you  will  come  also,  I  hope.  I 
wish  you  to  be  presented  to  my  sisters. 
They  are  only  amateurs  in  art,  but  they  are 
great  admirers  of  your  work,  and  they  have 
rebuked  me  for  not  having  already  pre 
sented  you.  We  were  all  disappointed,"  he 
continued,  courteously,  "  at  not  having  you 
to  dine  with  us  that  night  in  Constanti 
nople,  but  now  I  trust  I  shall  see  some- 


thing  of  you  here.  You  must  tell  us  what 
we  are  to  admire." 

"  That  is  very  easy,"  said  Carlton.  "  Ev 
erything." 

"You  are  quite  right,"  said  the  Prince, 
bowing  to  the  ladies  as  he  moved  away. 
"  It  is  all  very  beautiful." 

"  Well,  now  you  certainly  will  meet  her," 
said  Miss  Morris. 

"  Oh  no,  I  won't,"  said  Carlton,  with  resig 
nation.  "  I  have  had  two  chances  and  lost 
them,  and  I'll  miss  this  one  too." 

"Well,  there  is  a  chance  you  shouldn't 
miss,"  said  Miss  Morris,  pointing  and  nod 
ding  her  head.  "  There  she  is  now,  and  all 
alone.  She's  sketching,  isn't  she,  or  taking 
notes?  What  is  she  doing?" 

Carlton  looked  eagerly  in  the  direction 
Miss  Morris  had  signified,  and  saw  the 
Princess  Aline  sitting  at  some  distance 
from  them,  with  a  book  on  her  lap.  She 
glanced  up  from  this  now  and  again  to  look 


132 

at  something  ahead  of  her,  and  was  appar 
ently  deeply  absorbed  in  her  occupation. 

"  There  is  your  opportunity,"  said  Mrs. 
Downs ;  "  and  we  are  going  back  to  the 
hotel.  Shall  we  see  you  at  luncheon  ?" 

"Yes,"  said  Carlton,  "  unless  I  get  a  posi 
tion  as  drawing-master ;  in  that  case  I  shall 
be  here  teaching  the  three  amateurs  in  art. 
Do  you  think  I  can  do  it  ?"  he  asked  Miss 
Morris. 

"  Decidedly,"  she  answered.  "  I  have 
found  you  a  most  educational  young  per 
son." 

They  went  away  together,  and  Carlton 
moved  cautiously  towards  the  spot  where 
the  Princess  was  sitting.  He  made  a  long 
and  roundabout  detour  as  he  did  so,  in 
order  to  keep  himself  behind  her.  He  did 
not  mean  to  come  so  near  that  she  would 
see  him,  but  he  took  a  certain  satisfaction 
in  looking  at  her  when  she  was  alone, 
though  her  loneliness  was  only  a  matter  of 


133 

the  moment,  and  though  he  knew  that  her 
people  were  within  a  hundred  yards  of  her. 
He  was  in  consequence  somewhat  annoyed 
and  surprised  to  see  another  young  man 
dodging  in  and  out  among  the  pillars  of 
the  Parthenon  immediately  ahead  of  him, 
and  to  find  that  this  young  man  also  had 
his  attention  centred  on  the  young  girl, 
who  sat  unconsciously  sketching  in  the  fore 
ground. 

"  Now  what  the  devil  can  he  want?"  mut 
tered  Carlton,  his  imagination  taking  alarm 
at  once.  "  If  it  would  only  prove  to  be 
some  one  who  meant  harm  to  her,"  he 
thought  —  "a  brigand,  or  a  beggar,  who 
might  be  obligingly  insolent,  or  even  a  tipsy 
man,  what  a  chance  it  would  afford  for  he 
roic  action !" 

With  this  hope  he  moved  forward  quickly 
but  silently,  hoping  that  the  stranger  might 
prove  even  to  be  an  anarchist  with  a  grudge 
against  royalty.  And  as  he  advanced  he 


134 

had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  the  Princess 
glance  over  her  shoulder,  and,  observing  the 
man,  rise  and  walk  quickly  away  towards 
the  edge  of  the  rock.  There  she  seated  her 
self  with  her  face  towards  the  city,  and  with 
her  back  firmly  set  against  her  pursuer. 

"He  is  annoying  her !"  exclaimed  Carlton, 
delightedly,  as  he  hurried  forward.  "  It 
looks  as  though  my  chance  had  come  at 
last."  But  as  he  approached  the  stranger 
he  saw,  to  his  great  disappointment,  that  he 
had  nothing  more  serious  to  deal  with  than 
one  of  the  international  army  of  amateur 
photographers,  who  had  been  stalking  the 
Princess  as  a  hunter  follows  an  elk,  or  as  he 
would  have  stalked  a  race-horse  or  a  prom 
inent  politician,  or  a  Lord  Mayor's  show, 
everything  being  fish  that  came  within  the 
focus  of  his  camera.  A  helpless  statue  and 
an  equally  helpless  young  girl  were  both 
good  subjects  and  at  his  mercy.  He  was 
bending  over,  with  an  anxious  expression  of 


135 

countenance,  and  focussing  his  camera  on 
the  back  of  the  Princess  Aline,  when  Carlo 
ton  approached  from  the  rear.  As  the 
young  man  put  his  finger  on  the  button  of 
the  camera,  Carlton  jogged  his  arm  with  his 
elbow,  and  pushed  the  enthusiastic  tourist 
to  one  side. 

"  I  say,"  exclaimed  that  individual,  "  look 
where  you're  going,  will  you  ?  You  spoiled 
that  plate." 

"  I'll  spoil  your  camera  if  you  annoy  that 
young  lady  any  longer,"  said  Carlton,  in  a 
low  voice. 

The  photographer  was  rapidly  rewinding 
his  roll,  and  the  fire  of  pursuit  was  still  in 
his  eye. 

"  She's  a  Princess,"  he  explained,  in  an 
excited  whisper. 

"Well,"  said  Carlton,  "even  a  Princess  is 
entitled  to  some  consideration.  Besides," 
he  said,  in  a  more  amicable  tone,  "you 
haven't  a  permit  to  photograph  on  the 


136 

t 

Acropolis.  You  know  you  haven't."  Carl- 
ton  was  quite  sure  of  this,  because  there  were 
no  such  permits. 

The  amateur  looked  up  in  some  dismay. 
"  I  didn't  know  you  had  to  have  them,"  he 
said.  "  Where  can  I  get  one  ?" 

"  The  King  may  give  you  one/'  said  Carl- 
ton.  "  He  lives  at  the  palace.  If  they  catch 
you  up  here  without  a  license,  they  will  con 
fiscate  your  camera  and  lock  you  up.  You 
had  better  vanish  before  they  see  you." 

"  Thank  you.  I  will,"  said  the  tourist, 
anxiously. 

"  Now,"  thought  Carlton,  smiling  pleas 
antly,  "  when  he  goes  to  the  palace  with 
that  box  and  asks  for  a  permit,  they'll  think 
he  is  either  a  dynamiter  or  a  crank,  and  be 
fore  they  are  through  with  him  his  interest 
in  photography  will  have  sustained  a  severe 
shock." 

As  Carlton  turned  from  watching  the 
rapid  flight  of  the  photographer,  he  observed 


137 

that  the  Princess  had  remarked  it  also,  as 
she  had  no  doubt  been  a  witness  of  what 
had  passed,  even  if  she  had  not  overheard  all 
that  had  been  said.  She  rose  from  her  en 
forced  position  of  refuge  with  a  look  of  re 
lief,  and  came  directly  towards  Carlton  along 
the  rough  path  that  led  through  the  debris 
on  the  top  of  the  Acropolis.  Carlton  had 
thought,  as  he  watched  her  sitting  on  the 
wall,  with  her  chin  resting  on  her  hand,  that 
she  would  make  a  beautiful  companion  pict 
ure  to  the  one  he  had  wished  to  paint  of 
Miss  Morris  —  the  one  girl  standing  upright, 
looking  fearlessly  out  to  sea,  on  the  top  of 
the  low  wall,  with  the  wind  blowing  her 
skirts  about  her,  and  her  hair  tumbled  in 
the  breeze,  and  the  other  seated,  bending  in 
tently  forward,  as  though  watching  for  the 
return  of  a  long-delayed  vessel ;  a  beauti 
fully  sad  face,  fine  and  delicate  and  noble, 
the  face  of  a  girl  on  the  figure  of  a  woman. 
And  when  she  rose  he  made  no  effort  to 


138 

move  away,  or,  indeed,  to  pretend  not  to 
have  seen  her,  but  stood  looking  at  her  as 
though  he  had  the  right  to  do  so,  and  as 
though  she  must  know  he  had  that  right. 
As  she  came  towards  him  the  Princess  Aline 
did  not  stop,  nor  even  shorten  her  steps ;  but 
as  she  passed  opposite  to  him  she  bowed 
her  thanks  with  a  sweet  impersonal  smile 
and  a  dropping  of  the  eyes,  and  continued 
steadily  on  her  way. 

Carlton  stood  for  some  short  time  look 
ing  after  her,  with  his  hat  still  at  his  side. 
She  seemed  farther  from  him  at  that  mo 
ment  than  she  had  ever  been  before,  al 
though  she  had  for  the  first  time  recognized 
him.  But  he  knew  that  it  was  only  as  a 
human  being  that  she  had  recognized  him. 
He  put  on  his  hat,  and  sat  down  on  a  rock 
with  his  elbows  on  his  knees,  and  filled  his 
pipe. 

"  If  that  had  been  any  other  girl,"  he 
thought,  "  I  would  have  gone  up  to  her  and 


139 

said,  '  Was  that  man  annoying  you  ?'  and 
she  would  have  said,  'Yes;  thank  you/  or 
something ;  and  I  would  have  walked  along 
with  her  until  we  had  come  up  to  her 
friends,  and  she  would  have  told  them  I  had 
been  of  some  slight  service  to  her,  and  they 
would  have  introduced  us,  and  all  would 
have  gone  well.  But  because  she  is  a  Prin 
cess  she  cannot  be  approached  in  that  -way. 
At  least  she  does  not  think  so,  and  I  have 
to  act  as  she  has  been  told  I  should  act,  and 
not  as  I  think  I  should.  After  all,  she  is 
only  a  very  beautiful  girl,  and  she  must  be 
very  tired  of  her  cousins  and  grandmothers, 
and  of  not  being  allowed  to  see  any  one 
else.  These  royalties  make  a  very  pictu 
resque  show  for  the  rest  of  us,  but  indeed  it 
seems  rather  hard  on  them.  A  hundred 
years  from  now  there  will  be  no  more  kings 
and  queens,  and  the  writers  of  that  day  will 
envy  us,  just  as  the  writers  of  this  day  envy 
the  men  who  wrote  of  chivalry  and  tourna- 


140 

ments,  and  they  will  have  to  choose  their 
heroes  from  bank  presidents,  and  their  hero 
ines  from  lady  lawyers  and  girl  politicians 
and  type-writers.  What  a  stupid  world  it 
will  be  then !" 

The  next  day  brought  the  reception  to 
the  Hohenwalds ;.  and  Carlton,  entering  the 
reading-room  of  the  hotel  on  the  same  after 
noon,  found  Miss  Morris  and  her  aunt  there 
together  taking  tea.  They  both  looked  at 
him  with  expressions  of  such  genuine  com 
miseration  that  he  stopped  just  as  he  was  go 
ing  to  seat  himself  and  eyed  them  defiantly. 

"  Don't  tell  me,"  he  exclaimed,  "  that  this 
has  fallen  through  too !" 

Miss  Morris  nodded  her  head  silently. 

Carlton  dropped  into  the  chair  beside 
them,  and  folded  his  arms  with  a  frown  of 
grim  resignation.  "What  is  it?"  he  asked. 
"  Have  they  postponed  the  reception?"  .4, 

"  No,"  Miss  Morris  said ;  "  but  the  Prin 
cess  Aline  will  not  be  there." 


141 

"  Of  course  not,"  said  Carlton,  calmly,  "  of 
course  not.  May  I  ask  why  ?  I  knew  that 
she  wouldn't  be  there,  but  I  may  possibly 
be  allowed  to  express  some  curiosity." 

"  She  turned  her  ankle  on  one  of  the 
loose  stones  on  the  Acropolis  this  after 
noon,"  said  Miss  Morris,  "  and  sprained  it  so 
badly  that  they  had  to  carry  her — " 

"Who  carried  her?"  Carlton  demanded, 
fiercely. 

"  Some  of  her  servants." 

"  Of  course,  of  course !"  cried  Carlton. 
"  That's  the  way  it  always  will  be.  I  was 
there  the  whole  afternoon,  and  I  didn't  see 
her.  I  wasn't  there  to  help  her.  It's  Fate, 
that's  what  it  is — Fate!  There's  no  use  in 
my  trying  to  fight  against  Fate.  Still,"  he 
added,  anxiously,  with  a  sudden  access  of 
hope,  "she  may  be  well  by  this  evening." 

"  I  hardly  think  she  will,"  said  Miss  Mor 
ris,  "  but  we  will  trust  so." 

The   King's   palace   and   gardens   stretch 


142 

along  one  end  of  the  public  park,  and  are 
but  just  across  the  street  from  the  hotel 
where  the  Hohenwalds  and  the  Americans 
were  staying.  As  the  hotel  was  the  first 
building  on  the  left  of  the  square,  Carlton 
could  see  from  his  windows  the  illumina 
tions,  and  the  guards  of  honor,  and  the  car 
riages  arriving  and  departing,  and  the  citi 
zens  of  Athens  crowding  the  parks  and 
peering  through  the  iron  rails  into  the 
King's  garden.  It  was  a  warm  night,  and 
lighted  grandly  by  a  full  moon  that  showed 
the  Acropolis  in  silhouette  against  the  sky, 
and  gave  a  strangely  theatrical  look  to  the 
yellow  house  fronts  and  red  roofs  of  the 
town.  Every  window  in  the  broad  front  of 
the  palace  was  illuminated,  and  through  the 
open  doors  came  the  sound  of  music,  and 
one  without  could  see  rows  of  tall  servants 
in  the  King's  blue  and  white  livery,  and  the 
men  of  his  guard  in  their  white  petticoats 
and  black  and  white  jackets  and  red  caps. 


143 

Carlton  pulled  a  light  coat  over  his  evening 
dress,  and,  with  an  agitation  he  could  hardly 
explain,  walked  across  the  street  and  en 
tered  the  palace.  The  line  of  royalties  had 
broken  by  the  time  he  reached  the  ball 
room,  and  the  not  over -severe  etiquette  of 
the  Greek  court  left  him  free,  after  a  bow  to 
those  who  still  waited  to  receive  it,  to  move 
about  as  he  pleased.  His  most  earnest  de 
sire  was  to  learn  whether  or  not  the  Princess 
Aline  was  present,  and  with  that  end  he 
clutched  the  English  adjutant  as  that  gen 
tleman  was  hurrying  past  him,  and  asked 
eagerly  if  the  Princess  had  recovered  from 
her  accident. 

"  No,"  said  the  officer ;  "  she's  able  to  walk 
about,  but  not  to  stand,  and  sit  out  a  dinner, 
and  dance,  and  all  this  sort  of  thing.  Too 
bad,  wasn't  it  ?" 

"Yes,"  said  Carlton,  "very  bad."  He  re 
leased  his  hand  from  the  other's  arm,  and 
dropped  back  among  the  men  grouped 


144 

about  the  doorway.  His  disappointment 
was  very  keen.  Indeed,  he  had  not  known 
how  much  this  meeting  with  the  Princess 
had  meant  to  him  until  he  experienced  this 
disappointment,  which  was  succeeded  by  a 
wish  to  find  Miss  Morris,  and  have  her  sym 
pathize  and  laugh  with  him.  He  became 
conscious,  as  he  searched  with  growing  im 
patience  the  faces  of  those  passing  and  re- 
passing  before  him,  of  how  much  the  habit 
of  going  to  Miss  Morris  for  sympathy  in  his 
unlucky  love-affair  had  grown  of  late  upon 
him.  He  wondered  what  he  would  have 
done  in  his  travels  without  her,  and  whether 
he  should  have  had  the  interest  to  carry  on 
his  pursuit  had  she  not  been  there  to  urge 
him  on,  and  to  mock  at  him  when  he  grew 
faint-hearted. 

But  when  he  finally  did  discover  her  he 
stood  quite  still,  and  for  an  instant  doubted 
if  it  were  she.  The  girl  he  saw  seemed  to 
be  a  more  beautiful  sister  of  the  Miss  Morris 


145 

he  knew — a  taller,  fairer,  and  more  radiant 
personage ;  and  he  feared  that  it  was  not 
she,  until  he  remembered  that  this  was  the 
first  time  he  had  ever  seen  her  with  her  hair 
dressed  high  upon  her  head,  and  in  the 
more  distinguished  accessories  of  a  decollete 
gown  and  train.  Miss  Morris  had  her  hand 
on  the  arm  of  one  of  the  equerries,  who  was 
battling  good-naturedly  with  the  crowd,  and 
trying  to  draw  her  away  from  two  persistent 
youths  in  diplomatic  uniform  who  were 
laughing  and  pressing  forward  in  close  pur 
suit  on  the  other  side.  Carlton  approached 
her  with  a  certain  feeling  of  diffidence, 
which  was  most  unusual  to  him,  and  asked 
if  she  were  dancing. 

"  Mr.  Carlton  shall  decide  for  me,"  Miss 
Morris  said,  dropping  the  equerry's  arm  and 
standing  beside  the  American.  "  I  have 
promised  all  of  these  gentlemen,"  she  ex 
plained,  "  to  dance  with  them,  and  now  they 
won't  agree  as  to  which  is  to  dance  first. 


146 

They've  wasted  half  this  waltz  already  in 
discussing  it,  and  they  make  it  much  more 
difficult  by  saying  that  no  matter  how  I 
decide,  they  will  fight  duels  with  the  one 
I  choose,  which  is  most  unpleasant  for 
me." 

"  Most  unpleasant  for  the  gentleman  you 
choose,  too,"  suggested  Carlton. 

"  So,"  continued  Miss  Morris,  "  I  have  de 
cided  to  leave  it  to  you." 

"  Well,  if  I  am  to  arbitrate  between  the 
powers,"  said  Carlton,  with  a  glance  at  the 
three  uniforms,  "  my  decision  is  that  as  they 
insist  on  fighting  duels  in  any  event,  you 
had  better  dance  with  me  until  they  have 
settled  it  between  them,  and  then  the  sur 
vivor  can  have  the  next  dance." 

"  That's  a  very  good  idea,"  said  Miss  Mor 
ris;  and  taking  Carlton's  arm,  she  bowed 
to  the  three  men  and  drew  away. 

"  Mr.  Carlton,"  said  the  equerry,  with  a 
bow,  "  has  added  another  argument  in  favor 


147 

of  maintaining  standing  armies,  and  of  not 
submitting  questions  to  arbitration." 

"Let's  get  out  of  this,"  said  Carlton. 
"  You  don't  want  to  dance,  do  you  ?  Let  us 
go  where  it's  cool." 

He  led  her  down  the  stairs,  and  out  on  to 
the  terrace.  They  did  not  speak  again  until 
they  had  left  it,  and  were  walking  under  the 
trees  in  the  Queen's  garden.  He  had  no 
ticed  as  they  made  their  way  through  the 
crowd  how  the  men  and  women  turned 
to  look  at  her  and  made  way  for  her,  and 
how  utterly  unconscious  she  was  of  their 
doing  so,  with  that  unconsciousness  which 
comes  from  familiarity  with  such  discrimina 
tion,  and  Carlton  himself  held  his  head  a 
little  higher  with  the  pride  and  pleasure  the 
thought  gave  him  that  he  was  in  such 
friendly  sympathy  with  so  beautiful  a  creat 
ure.  He  stopped  before  a  low  stone  bench 
that  stood  on  the  edge  of  the  path,  sur 
rounded  by  a  screen  of  tropical  trees,  and 


148 

guarded  by  a  marble  statue.  They  were  in 
deep  shadow  themselves,  but  the  moonlight 
fell  on  the  path  at  their  feet,  and  through 
the  trees  on  the  other  side  of  the  path  they 
could  see  the  open  terrace  of  the  palace, 
with  the  dancers  moving  in  and  out  of  the 
lighted  windows.  The  splash  of  a  fountain 
came  from  some  short  distance  behind 
them,  and  from  time  to  time  they  heard  the 
strains  of  a  regimental  band  alternating  with 
the  softer  strains  of  a  waltz  played  by  a 
group  of  Hungarian  musicians.  For  a  mo 
ment  neither  of  them  spoke,  but  sat  watch 
ing  the  white  dresses  of  the  women  and  the 
uniforms  of  the  men  moving  in  and  out 
among  the  trees,  lighted  by  the  lanterns 
hanging  from  the  branches,  and  the  white 
mist  of  the  moon. 

"  Do  you  know,"  said  Carlton,  "  I'm  rath 
er  afraid  of  you  to-night !"  He  paused,  and 
watched  her  for  a  little  time  as  she  sat  up 
right,  with  her  hands  folded  on  her  lap. 


149 

"  You  are  so  very  resplendent  and  queenly 
and  altogether  different,"  he  added.  The 
girl  moved  her  bare  shoulders  slightly  and 
leaned  back  against  the  bench. 

"The  Princess  did  not  come,"  she  said. 

"No,"  Carlton  answered,  with  a  sudden 
twinge  of  conscience  at  having  forgotten  that 
fact.  "  That's  one  of  the  reasons  I  took  you 
away  from  those  men,"  he  explained.  "I 
wanted  you  to  sympathize  with  me." 

Miss  Morris  did  not  answer  him  at  once. 
She  did  not  seem  to  be  in  a  sympathetic 
mood.  Her  manner  suggested  rather  that 
she  was  tired  and  troubled. 

"  I  need  sympathy  myself  to-night,"  she 
said.  "  We  received  a  letter  after  dinner 
that  brought  bad  news  for  us.  We  must  go 
home  at  once." 

"  Bad  news !"  exclaimed  Carlton,  with  much 
concern.  "From  home?" 

"Yes,  from  home,"  she  replied;  "but  there 
is  nothing  wrong  there ;  it  is  only  bad  news 


150 

for  us.  My  sister  has  decided  to  be  married 
in  June  instead  of  July,  and  that  cuts  us  out 
of  a  month  on  the  Continent.  That's  all. 
We  shall  have  to  leave  immediately  —  to 
morrow.  It  seems  that  Mr.  Abbey  is  able 
to  go  away  sooner  than  he  had  hoped,  and 
they  are  to  be  married  on  the  first." 

"  Mr.  Abbey  !"  exclaimed  Carlton,  catch 
ing  at  the  name.  "  But  your  sister  isn't  go 
ing  to  marry  him,  is  she?" 

Miss  Morris  turned  her  head  in  some  sur 
prise.  "  Yes — why  not  ?"  she  said. 

"  But  I  say !"  cried  Carlton,  "  I  thought— 
your  aunt  told  me  that  you  were  going  to 
marry  Abbey ;  she  told  me  so  that  day 
on  the  steamer  when  he  came  to  see  you 
off." 

"  I  marry  him — my  aunt  told  you — impos 
sible  !"  said  Miss  Morris,  smiling.  "  She 
probably  said  that  '  her  niece '  was  going  to 
marry  him ;  she  meant  my  sister.  They  had 
been  engaged  some  time." 


"Then  who  are  you  going  to  marry?" 
stammered  Carlton. 

"  I  am  not  going  to  marry  any  one,"  said 
Miss  Morris. 

Carlton  stared  at  her  blankly  in  amaze 
ment.  Well,  that's  most  absurd !"  he  ex 
claimed. 

He  recognized  instantly  that  the  expres 
sion  was  hardly  adequate,  but  he  could  not 
readjust  his  mind  so  suddenly  to  the  new 
idea,  and  he  remained  looking  at  her  with 
many  confused  memories  rushing  through 
his  brain.  A  dozen  questions  were  on  his 
tongue.  He  remembered  afterwards  how  he 
had  noticed  a  servant  trimming  the  candle  in 
one  of  the  orange-colored  lanterns,  and  that 
he  had  watched  him  as  he  disappeared  among 
the  palms. 

The  silence  lasted  for  so  long  a  time  that 
it  had  taken  on  a  significance  in  itself  which 
Carlton  recognized.  He  pulled  himself  up 
with  a  short  laugh.  "  Well,"  he  remonstra- 


152 

ted,  mirthlessly,  "  I  don't  think  you've  treat 
ed  me  very  well." 

"  How,  not  treated  you  very  well?"  Miss 
Morris  asked,  settling  herself  more  easily, 
She  had  been  sitting  during  the  pause  which 
followed  Carlton's  discovery  with  a  certain 
rigidity,  as  if  she  was  on  a  strain  of  attention. 
But  her  tone  was  now  as  friendly  as  always, 
and  held  its  customary  suggestion  of  amuse 
ment.  Carlton  took  his  tone  from  it,  al 
though  his  mind  was  still  busily  occupied 
with  incidents  and  words  of  hers  that  she 
had  spoken  in  their  past  intercourse. 

"Not  fair  in  letting  me  think  you  were 
engaged,"  he  said.  "  I've  wasted  so  much 
time:  I'm  not  half  civil  enough  to  engaged 
girls,"  he  explained. 

"You've  been  quite  civil  enough  to  us," 
said  Miss  Morris,  "  as  a  courier,  philosopher, 
and  friend.  I'm  very  sorry  we  have  to  part 
company." 

"  Part  company !"  exclaimed  Carlton,  in 


153 

sudden  alarm.  "  But,  I  say,  we  mustn't  do 
that." 

"  But  we  must,  you  see,"  said  Miss  Mor 
ris.  "  We  must  go  back  for  the  wedding, 
and  you  will  have  to  follow  the  Princess 
Aline." 

"Yes,  of  course,"  Carlton  heard  his  own 
voice  say.  "  I  had  forgotten  the  Princess 
Aline."  But  he  was  not  thinking  of  what  he 
was  saying,  nor  of  the  Princess  Aline.  He 
was  thinking  of  the  many  hours  Miss  Morris 
and  he  had  been  together,  of  the  way  she 
had  looked  at  certain  times,  and  of  how  he 
had  caught  himself  watching  her  at  others ; 
how  he  had  pictured  the  absent  Mr.  Abbey 
travelling  with  her  later  over  the  same  route, 
and  without  a  chaperon,  sitting  close  at  her 
side  or  holding  her  hand,  and  telling  her  just 
how  pretty  she  was  whenever  he  wished  to 
do  so,  and  without  any  fear  of  the  conse 
quences.  He  remembered  how  ready  she 
had  been  to  understand  what  he  was  going 


154 

to  say  before  he  had  finished  saying  it,  and 
how  she  had  always  made  him  show  the  best 
of  himself,  and  had  caused  him  to  leave  un 
said  many  things  that  became  common  and 
unworthy  when  considered  in  the  light  of  her 
judgment.  He  recalled  how  impatient  he 
had  been  when  she  was  late  at  dinner,  and 
how  cross  he  was  throughout  one  whole  day 
when  she  had  kept  her  room.  He  felt  with 
a  sudden  shock  of  delightful  fear  that  he  had 
grown  to  depend  upon  her,  that  she  was  the 
best  companion  he  had  ever  known  ;  and  he 
remembered  moments  when  they  had  been 
alone  together  at  the  table,  or  in  some  old 
palace,  or  during  a  long  walk,  when  they  had 
seemed  to  have  the  whole  world  entirely  to 
themselves,  and  how  he  had  consoled  him 
self  at  such  times  with  the  thought  that  no 
matter  how  long  she  might  be  Abbey's  wife, 
there  had  been  these  moments  in  her  life 
which  were  his,  with  which  Abbey  had  had 
nothing  to  do. 


155 

Carlton  turned  and  looked  at  her  with 
strange  wide-open  eyes,  as  though  he  saw  her 
for  the  first  time.  He  felt  so  sure  of  himself 
and  of  his  love  for  her  that  the  happiness  of 
it  made  him  tremble,  and  the  thought  that  if 
he  spoke  she  might  answer  him  in  the  old, 
friendly,  mocking  tone  of  good-fellowship 
filled  him  with  alarm.  At  that  moment  it 
seemed  to  Carlton  that  the  most  natural  thing 
in  the  world  for  them  to  do  would  be  to  go 
back  again  together  over  the  road  they  had 
come,  seeing  everything  in  the  new  light  of 
his  love  for  her,  and  so  travel  on  and  on  for 
ever  over  the  world,  learning  to  love  each 
other  more  and  more  each  succeeding  day, 
and  leaving  the  rest  of  the  universe  to  move 
along  without  them. 

He  leaned  forward  with  his  arm  along 
the  back  of  the  bench,  and  bent  his  face 
towards  hers.  Her  hand  lay  at  her  side, 
and  his  own  closed  over  it,  but  the  shock 
that  the  touch  of  her  fingers  gave  him 


156 

stopped  and  confused  the  words  upon  his 
tongue.  He  looked  strangely  at  her,  and 
could  not  find  the  speech  he  needed. 

Miss  Morris  gave  his  hand  a  firm,  friendly 
little  pressure  and  drew  her  own  away,  as  if 
he  had  taken  hers  only  in  an  exuberance  of 
good  feeling. 

"You  have  been  very  nice  to  us,"  she 
said,  with  an  effort  to  make  her  tone  sound 
kindly  and  approving.  "  And  we — " 

"  You  mustn't  go ;  I  can't  let  you  go," 
said  Carlton,  hoarsely.  There  was  no  mis 
taking  his  tone  or  his  earnestness  now.  "If 
you  go,"  he  went  on,  breathlessly,  "  I  must 
go  with  you." 

The  girl  moved  restlessly ;  she  leaned  for 
ward,  and  drew  in  her  breath  with  a  slight, 
nervous  tremor.  Then  she  turned  and 
faced  him,  almost  as  though  she  were  afraid 
of  him  or  of  herself,  and  they  sat  so  for  an 
instant  in  silence.  The  air  seemed  to  have 
grown  close  and  heavy,  and  Carlton  saw  her 


157 

dimly.  In  the  silence  he  heard  the  splash 
of  the  fountain  behind  them,  and  the  rus 
tling  of  the  leaves  in  the  night  wind,  and 
the  low,  sighing  murmur  of  a  waltz. 

He  raised  his  head  to  listen,  and  she  saw 
in  the  moonlight  that  he  was  smiling.  It 
was  as  though  he  wished  to  delay  any  an 
swer  she  might  make  to  his  last  words. 

"  That  is  the  waltz,"  he  said,  still  speak 
ing  in  a  whisper,  "  that  the  gypsies  played 
that  night — "  He  stopped,  and  Miss  Mor 
ris  answered  him  by  bending  her  head  slow 
ly  in  assent.  It  seemed  to  be  an  effort  for 
her  to  even  make  that  slight  gesture. 

"  You  don't  remember  it,"  said  Carlton. 
"  It  meant  nothing  to  you.  I  mean  that 
night  on  the  steamer  when  I  told  you  what 
love  meant  to  other  people.  What  a  fool  I 
was !"  he  said,  with  an  uncertain  laugh. 

"  Yes,  I  remember  it,"  she  said — "  last 
Thursday  night,  on  the  steamer." 

"Thursday    night!"  exclaimed    Carlton, 


158 

indignantly.  "  Wednesday  night,  Tuesday 
night,  how  should  I  know  what  night  of  the 
week  it  was?  It  was  the  night  of  my  life 
to  me.  That  night  I  knew  that  I  loved  you 
as  I  had  never  hoped  to  care  for  any  one  in 
this  world.  When  I  told  you  that  I  did 
not  know  what  love  meant  I  felt  all  the 
time  that  I  was  lying.  I  knew  that  I  loved 
you,  and  that  I  could  never  love  any  one 
else,  and  that  I  had  never  loved  any  one 
before ;  and  if  I  had  thought  then  you 
could  care  for  me,  your  engagement  or  your 
promises  would  never  have  stopped  my 
telling  you  so.  You  said  that  night  that  I 
would  learn  to  love  all  the  better,  and  more 
truly,  for  having  doubted  myself  so  long, 
and,  oh,  Edith,"  he  cried,  taking  both  her 
hands  and  holding  them  close  in  his  own, 
"  I  cannot  let  you  go  now !  I  love  you  so ! 
Don't  laugh  at  me ;  don't  mock  at  me.  AH 
the  rest  of  my  life  depends  on  you." 

And  then  Miss  Morris  laughed  softly,  just 


159 

as  he  had  begged  her  not  to  do,  but  her 
laughter  was  so  full  of  happiness,  and  came 
so  gently  and  sweetly,  and  spoke  so  truly 
of  content,  that  though  he  let  go  of  her 
hands  with  one  of  his,  it  was  only  that  he 
might  draw  her  to  him,  until  her  face 
touched  his,  and  she  felt  the  strength  of  his 
arm  as  he  held  her  against  his  breast. 

The  Hohenwalds  occupied  the  suite  of 
rooms  on  the  first  floor  of  the  hotel,  with 
the  privilege  of  using  the  broad  balcony 
that  reached  out  from  it  over  the  front  en 
trance.  And  at  the  time  when  Mrs.  Downs 
and  Edith  Morris  and  Carlton  drove  up  to 
the  hotel  from  the  ball,  the  Princess  Aline 
was  leaning  over  the  balcony  and  watching 
the  lights  go  out  in  the  upper  part  of  the 
house,  and  the  moonlight  as  it  fell  on  the 
trees  and  statues  in  the  public  park  below. 
Her  foot  was  still  in  bandages,  and  she  was 
wrapped  in  a  long  cloak  to  keep  her  from 


i6o 

the  cold.  Inside  of  the  open  windows  that 
led  out  on  to  the  balcony  her  sisters  were 
taking  off  their  ornaments,  and  discussing 
the  incidents  of  the  night  just  over. 

The  Princess  Aline,  unnoticed  by  those 
below,  saw  Carlton  help  Mrs.  Downs  to 
alight  from  the  carriage,  and  then  give  his 
hand  to  another  muffled  figure  that  fol 
lowed  her;  and  while  Mrs.  Downs  was  as 
cending  the  steps,  and  before  the  second 
muffled  figure  had  left  the  shadow  of  the 
carriage  and  stepped  into  the  moonlight, 
the  Princess  Aline  saw  Carlton  draw  her 
suddenly  back  and  kiss  her  lightly  on  the 
cheek,  and  heard  a  protesting  gasp,  and  saw 
Miss  Morris  pull  her  cloak  over  her  head 
and  run  up  the  steps.  Then  she  saw  Carl- 
ton  shake  hands  with  them,  and  stand  for  a 
moment  after  they  had  disappeared,  gazing 
up  at  the  moon  and  fumbling  in  the  pockets 
of  his  coat.  He  drew  out  a  cigar-case  and 
leisurely  selected  a  cigar,  and  with  much  ap- 


parent  content  lighted  it,  and  then,  with  his 
head  thrown  back  and  his  chest  expanded, 
as  though  he  were  challenging  the  world,  he 
strolled  across  the  street  and  disappeared 
among  the  shadows  of  the  deserted  park. 

The  Princess  walked  back  to  one  of  the 
open  windows,  and  stood  there  leaning 
against  the  side.  "  That  young  Mr.  Carl- 
ton,  the  artist,"  she  said  to  her  sisters,  "is 
engaged  to  that  beautiful  American  girl  we 
met  the  other  day." 

"  Really !"  said  the  elder  sister.  "  I 
thought  it  was  probable.  Who  told  you  ?" 

"  I  saw  him  kiss  her  good-night,"  said  the 
Princess,  stepping  into  the  window,  "  as  they 
got  out  of  their  carriage  just  now." 

The  Princess  Aline  stood  for  a  moment 
looking  thoughtfully  at  the  floor,  and  then 
walked  across  the  room  to  a  little  writing- 
desk.  She  unlocked  a  drawer  in  this  and 
took  from  it  two  slips  of  paper,  which  she 
folded  in  her  hand.  Then  she  returned 


I&2 

slowly  across  the  room,  and  stepped  out 
again  on  to  the  balcony. 

One  of  the  pieces  of  paper  held  the  pict 
ure  Carlton  had  drawn  of  her,  and  under 
which  he  had  written :  "  This  is  she.  Do 
you  wonder  I  travelled  four  thousand  miles 
to  see  her?"  And  the  other  was  the  pict 
ure  of  Carlton  himself,  which  she  had  cut 
out  of  the  catalogue  of  the  Salon. 

From  the  edge  of  the  balcony  where  the 
Princess  stood  she  could  see  the  glimmer  of 
Carlton's  white  linen  and  the  red  glow  of  his 
cigar  as  he  strode  proudly  up  and  down  the 
path  of  the  public  park,  like  a  sentry  keep 
ing  watch.  She  folded  the  pieces  of  paper 
together  and  tore  them  slowly  into  tiny 
fragments,  and  let  them  fall  through  her 
fingers  into  the  street  below.  Then  she 
returned  again  to  the  room,  and  stood  look 
ing  at  her  sisters. 

"  Do  you  know,"  she  said,  "  I  think  I  am 
a  little  tired  of  travelling  so  much.  I  want 


1 63 

to  go  Back  to  Grasse."  She  put  her  hand 
to  her  forehead  and  held  it  there  for  a  mo 
ment  .  "  I  think  I  am  a  little  homesick," 
said  the  Princess  Aline. 


THE  END 


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